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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340610">the boy who ate a star</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoonmims/pseuds/catgod'>catgod (yoonmims)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Background Relationships, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M, Magic, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Romance, bokuto is howl n akaashi is sophie, the rest u can figure out while reading it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:36:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28340610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoonmims/pseuds/catgod</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Akaashi Keiji meets a heart-eating wizard, and gets turned into an old man. It doesn't turn out as badly as expected.</p><p>AKA: A Howl's Moving Castle AU</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the boy who ate a star</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawns/gifts">dawns</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HAPPY LATE CHRISTMAS BAO!!!!!!! this was so much fun to write and also gave me an excuse to rewatch howls moving castle with u hehe yahey! i hope u like it (it turned out way longer than expected), love u lots n lots n lots!!!!! &lt;3 </p><p>this fic is unbeta-ed and i speedwrote it over like a week over christmas so &lt;3 enjoy but pls be lenient with my writing lmao &lt;3 if u spot any mistakes let me know aha</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Keiji sometimes wonders, like he does with all things, whether everything would have turned out this way if he had simply decided to go along with the others that one day. Whether that one decision was what set his life on this path, or if meeting Bokuto and all the events that followed were written in the stars, their fates intertwined on a cosmic level.</p><p>There are some things that aren’t worth debating, however, because Keiji knows even if he had the chance to go back and change the events of that day, he wouldn’t for the world.</p><p>Beside him, Bokuto stirs in bed and Keiji runs a gentle hand through that two-toned hair, combing the knots out and soothing the silky strands. Bokuto smacks his lips, mumbling something in his sleep. Around them, the familiar creaks and groans of the castle and it’s gentle jostling movement rock him back to sleep.</p><p>Downstairs, Keiji can make out the sounds of pots banging and a low voice complaining, with another voice laughing in response. The castle slowly wakes up around them, even as Keiji settles himself back down against the pillows and into his lover's arms, falling back into an easy slumber.</p><p>No, he wouldn’t change it for the world.</p><p>Why go back to dreaming about quitting his job to write about fantasy worlds and wizards who eat hearts and an epic romance for the ages, when he has the real thing right next to him?</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want to join us, Akaashi-san?” </p><p>Keiji barely looks up from the document he’s reading over, red ink-dipped quill clutched tightly in his hand and a frazzled look in his eyes. “Not today,” he says. “Apologies.”</p><p>Outside the small window of his cramped office, a steam train goes rushing past with a blast of noise and acrid black smoke, fogging the window and making the entire building shudder. There’s a headache forming at the front of Keiji’s head, bitter smell of smoke and burning coal filling his nostrils.</p><p>One of the interns sighs from his doorway. “Ah, that’s a shame. You really must take a break sometime, Akaashi-san.” The others nod in agreement.</p><p>“I have too much work,” Keiji replies, another rebuttal. He softens slightly. “But you enjoy yourselves, okay? Bring me back one of those cakes I like.”</p><p>“You got it!”</p><p>The youngest of the interns looks out of the main office window and gasps. “Look! It’s the wizard's castle. He’s back again!”</p><p>The others crowd around, tittering and chattering excitedly. Even deep in the mire of stress and overwork, Keiji can’t ignore his curiosity. Over the rooftops and across the city, from his small window he can just about glimpse the rolling hills and greenery, a lifetime away. Hidden amongst the thick fog that blankets the hills, he can just about make out the movement of a giant structure.</p><p>The wizard Bokuto’s Moving Castle. </p><p>It was the stuff of children's tales and fantasy novels, and as a child Akaashi had been obsessed with it, and with the story of the wizard Bokuto who lived in it.</p><p>“I wonder if that means Bokuto’s in town?” one of the interns asks, pulling on his coat. “Perhaps we’ll see him. I heard he’s very handsome.”</p><p>“I heard he whisked away the prince from the next kingdom over, and he’s the reason we’re at war!”</p><p>“I heard he eats people's hearts,” another one chimes in. “Especially if they’re beautiful.”</p><p>“Well, you don’t have to worry about that then, do you?”</p><p>The bell on the door chimes as they pull it open, and then the sounds of their laughter and chatter disappears down the hall as the door slams shut behind them. Keiji is left alone once more. Red ink drips from his quill onto the page below, splattering like blood. Keiji curses and mops it up with some spare tissue, and then pulls his eyes and thoughts away from the window and Bokuto and the castle, and back to his work.</p><p>Bit by bit, he makes his way through the document before him, circling grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in bold red. With an expert eye, he picks out incorrect phrases and loopholes and edits them all, even as the headache behind his eyes grows.</p><p>Read a sentence. Read it again. Circle mistakes. Read the whole paragraph. Point out inconsistencies. Again, and again, and again.</p><p>Another train rumbles by outside, and Keiji sits back. With a groan, he stretches, and his eyes fall on an open letter tossed aside on his desk. It had been from Konoha, letting him know that his headache medication was available to collect from the pharmacy again. There had been a more personal note with it too, reminding Keiji to get out of his office and breathe some fresh air every now and then.</p><p>The clock on the wall says half three. If he goes now, he can probably make it in time. Pulling on his coat and buttoning it up, Keiji takes a brief glance at himself in the mirror before he leaves. He looks thin, swaddled in his thick overcoat and wool scarf. Messy hair, eyebags so dark they almost look painted on, and skin so pale and wan he looks ill. He grimaces. Attractive as always.</p><p>Outside, the streets are busy and full of cheer. Soldiers parade through the streets, decked out in their best finery atop horses. As Keiji ducks through a courtyard in a side street, he sees a street party in full swing. Colourful garlands and ribbons flutter around the fountain and hang from all the nearby houses, and people sit at tables or dance in pairs.</p><p>Music and festivities fill the air. A young girl beckons Keiji over to join them, smile bright, and he ducks his head and walks faster. Overheard, planes trailing bright banners emblazoned with the king's coat of arms fly past.</p><p>It’s too much - too bright, too happy, too loud. </p><p>They’re having one last celebration before the war starts. <em> One last party before they send the soldiers to their deaths, </em>Keiji thinks wryly. But he won’t deny them this last moment of happiness before the war starts, and the world becomes infinitely darker.</p><p>Keiji ducks into an alleyway and lets out a small sigh in relief as the noise quiets. <em> Much better. </em>There’s already the beginnings of a headache forming. He’s so focused on the faint sounds of celebration that he doesn’t notice the people in front of him until he’s already walked into them.</p><p>He takes a step back and bows in apology. “My apologies, excuse me.” A hand catches his arm.</p><p>“What’s the rush?”</p><p>Keiji freezes. The two soldiers leer at him. They’re not much taller than him, but they’re far more intimidating, decked out in uniform hiding bulging muscles and thick leather boots.“Yeah, what’s the rush?”</p><p>“I’m meeting someone,” Keiji says flatly, doing his best to avoid their eyes. “Please let me pass.”</p><p>“You’re very pretty for a man,” the soldier continues on regardless, tilting his head to look at Keiji better. “A little plain, but if you were any prettier I’d think you were a woman.” Keiji bristles as the soldiers laugh together. <em> Was that supposed to be funny, somehow? Disgusting.  </em></p><p>It’s not worth getting into arguments with the soldiers, Keiji knows. They’re too cocky, high on the power trip that comes from being the ones in control, and the situation will just end up worse for him. He’s seen enough altercations between arrogant soldiers and innocent civilians to know how it ends.</p><p>He’s just about to make another excuse and attempt to tuck away when suddenly a strong smell of fresh pine hits him, and then there’s a heavy arm slinging comfortably around his shoulders, and a voice speaking. “Hey, hey, here you are! I was looking for you everywhere.”</p><p>Keiji gapes up at the mystery man, who talks casually to Keiji as if they’ve known each other for years. He’s dressed in the most bizarre garb, a bright pink and gold diamond patterned cloak hanging from his shoulders, and a flowing white shirt that exposes far too much chest beneath. Keiji’s eyes are caught on the jewelled earrings that dangle from his ears, and the inky black hair atop his head. He’s beautiful, but in a way Keiji’s unfamiliar with. Underneath his shirt and cloak, Keiji can feel the raw power that’s contained in muscle there, and the glimpses of chest beneath the shirt he can see make his throat dry. Beautifully ethereal in an unconventionally masculine way.</p><p>He’s ethereal. It’s like he’s glowing. Keiji can’t look away.</p><p>The mystery man frowns at the two soldiers, and Keiji takes the time to notice his bright golden eyes. “Hey, what’s going on here?”</p><p>The soldiers stutter, taking a step back. “We were just-”</p><p>“Leaving? The man interrupts the soldiers with a smile. With a whisk of his finger in the air, the soldiers abruptly turn, movements mechanical, and walk themselves off. <em> Magic, </em>Keiji thinks wondrously. “Much better!” the man says with a smile.</p><p>“I could have handled it,” Keiji says quietly, and the man just beams at him.</p><p>“But isn’t it better to have help? Sorry for butting in, though. Let me walk you to your destination.”</p><p>“It’s quite alright, you don’t need to.”</p><p>“Nonsense!” the man booms loudly. “Besides,” he lowers his voice, speaking directly into Keiji’s ear. “I think I’m being followed. Act normal.”</p><p><em> Act normal </em> , Keiji thinks wryly. The irony of this man telling him to act normal, when he’s dressed like that in public, and performing magic on soldiers willy-nilly. Act <em> normal. </em>As if that’s possible.</p><p>“I’m going to the pharmacy,” he concedes, and lets the man tuck him under his arm as they walk down the alleyway.</p><p>“I’ll deliver you safe and sound,” the man promises. With him pressed so close to Keiji, the smell of pine and, bizarrely, clean laundry is almost overpowering now, Keiji feels as if he could choke on it.</p><p>As they walk, he starts to notice the shadows growing longer. He thinks it’s just a trick of his mind at first, but then he sees the strangers eyes lingering on them. The shadows move like liquid, pooling around door frames and corners, until they finally start to writhe and grow, breaking free from their constraints. <em> How is that possible? More magic? </em></p><p>The man lets go of Keiji’s shoulder and grips his wrist instead. “Run!” he says. There’s a smile on his face far too wide and bright for someone being chased.</p><p>And so they run.</p><p>It’s the most exercise Keiji’s done in years.</p><p>Keiji’s left tailing behind the man, struggling to keep up with his fast pace as they weave between buildings and alleyways. </p><p>Left. Right. Right again. Left once more. Straight on.</p><p>At every turn it seems like there’s more of those terrifying shadow creatures, and it’s scary and exhilarating and every emotion Keiji thought he’d never feel again when he signed his life away to working at the legal office. His heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest, his eyes can’t keep up.</p><p>They turn into a dead-end. Behind them, the shadow men scramble over each other in an attempt to catch them. They’re done for now, Keiji realises. There’s no escape. With walls all around and the one exit blocked by shadow men, there’s nowhere to go.</p><p>Nowhere to go, except…</p><p>Keiji looks upwards. Tall buildings tower around them on every side with leaning walls and open windows. A clothes line dangles across between houses, but past that there’s blue sky.</p><p>The man gives Keiji a grin, and then arms are wrapping around his waist and he’s tugged in close, chest to chest. “Hold on!” There’s nothing to do but grip onto the man’s shoulders as they go rocketing upwards, propelled by more than just muscle. The wind goes rushing past them, and so do the houses. Keiji counts three windows before suddenly there’s fabric in his face.</p><p>That damn clothes line.</p><p>He sputters and pulls the clothes off, flinging them down. Then, all of a sudden they come to a slow halt.</p><p>Heart racing a mile a minute, Keiji can hardly bring himself to look down as they go soaring up above the rooftops. His face is pressed into the man's bare chest, a bright necklace banging against Keiji’s nose. He can’t look, oh god, he can’t look. Any second now they’ll fall to their deaths and die.</p><p>What will they tell Konoha about how he died? If he hears that Keiji fell from a rooftop to his death, then he’ll surely think the worst. Keiji can’t do that to him. </p><p>They’re not that far above the rooftops, he notices. Floating gently across them like a cloud pushed by the breeze. There’s an old lady watering flowers on her rooftop, oblivious to the two people floating past.</p><p>With gentle hands, the man pries Keiji away from him. He holds each of Keiji’s hands in his. “Walk just like you normally do,” he says.</p><p>Skeptical, Keiji does, and then gasps when he finds he doesn’t fall.</p><p>They soar into the main streets of the city. Down below, the festivities are still ongoing. People dance and sing and talk in the streets, so engrossed by what’s going on around them that they don’t notice the two people walking above them.</p><p>“We’re flying,” Keiji says, shocked. <em> I’m actually flying. </em></p><p>The man behind him lets out a booming laugh. When he laughs, it sounds almost like an owl hooting. Behind Keiji, his body is solid and warm, and Keiji can feel himself start to relax infinitesimally in his hold. The hands that grip him are soft but firm.</p><p>“Better watch out,” the stranger says, voice far too loud and amused in Keiji’s ear. “Keep walking. We wouldn’t want you to fall all the way down there.” The words could so easily be malicious, tinged with mockery or hidden meaning, but there’s only an earnesty that Keiji believes in. </p><p>He seems amused by Keiji’s amazement, letting out small hoots of laughter as he guides Keiji over the rooftops and towards the pharmacy.</p><p>They land gently onto the veranda above the little pharmaceutical shop. Through the windows, Keiji can see the corridors and offices of the rooms above the shop. “I’ll leave you here,” the man says, giving one last charming smile. His earring twinkles. “I think they’re still following me. Wait here, and I’ll be back, okay?”</p><p>Still stunned, Keiji nods. His inner voice of reason screams at him. <em> Why are you agreeing to this? You don’t even know this man!  </em></p><p>The man smiles even brighter. “Good!” Then he flings himself backwards off the balcony, and Keiji can only watch in shock as he falls down into the crowds gathered below. Keiji rushes to look over, but the man is gone by the time he gets there. There’s nothing but crowds of people in their finery below. No sign of that distinctive pink and gold cape, or that hooting laughter.</p><p>Konoha finds him there half an hour later, still peering over the balcony. “Akaashi?” he asks, rushing over. “How the hell did you get up here?”</p><p>It takes a while for Keiji to manage to get the words out, and from Konoha’s eyes on him he can tell that Konoha thinks this might just be one of the fantastical novel ideas he dreamt up.</p><p>Keiji can’t blame him for that. He’s still not entirely convinced it happened himself. Him, of all people, encountering a wizard in the streets of the city? Plain, boring Akaashi Keiji who works himself to the bone at the government offices, editing legal documents and papers at all hours of the day - who would believe that a wizard took him for a walk in the skies?</p><p>It wasn’t all just a dream - was it?</p><p>After listening to his story, Konoha leans back onto the shelves of the supply room behind him. “You’d better be careful,” he says. “It sounds like you got lucky today. If that had been the wizard Bokuto you encountered… you might not even be here today.”</p><p>“I don’t think I have to worry about that,” Keiji says dryly. “I hear Bokuto likes the hearts of young and beautiful people.”</p><p>Konoha shoves him. “You are young and beautiful, you just work too much. When are you going to quit that terrible job? You need a break.”</p><p>“I need to earn a living,” Keiji reminds him. “Besides, it’s not that bad.”</p><p>“It’s crushing you inside, I can tell.” Konoha sighs. “I know there aren’t many jobs around for someone with your skills, and that you just want to make your father proud, even if you didn’t become a lawyer like he wanted, but you need to start living for you, Akaashi.”</p><p>Keiji doesn’t reply. Konoha’s right. He hates working at the government office, spending day after day reading boring legal documents to see if they used the right ‘there’ rather than ‘their’, but he’s stuck. Years ago he’d fantasised that he could work at the office during the day and pursue his dream of being an author in the evenings, but he’s just so tired every day he finishes work.</p><p>And the more time that passes, the emptier he feels inside. He has nothing more to give, no energy and passion to spill into creating fantastical worlds and weaving magical adventures with his words. It’s just work, sleep, eat.</p><p>Rinse, repeat.</p><p>He checks his watch. “I need to get back,” he tells Konoha. “I have a deadline tonight, and I need to finish up before then.”</p><p>Konoha sighs, waving him off with a hand. “Get going then, you workaholic. Don’t forget what I said about being careful, though. It’s not just Bokuto, I hear the Witch of the Wastes has been spotted lurking around. Oh, before I forget.” He tosses a small packet at Keiji.</p><p>Keiji catches it in his hands and inspects it. His headache medication. Konoha points a challenging finger at him. “Make sure you’re getting enough rest.”</p><p>“I will,” Keiji assures him, “and thank you.”</p><p>The streets are still packed when he emerges, barely managing to squeeze onto a tram as it passes. Around him are people from all walks of life - butchers, soldiers, teachers, office workers - but they’re all the same. All little cogs that work day in and out to keep the industrial machine working. Undervalued and inconsequential by themselves, but integral nonetheless.</p><p>But that man wasn’t like that. He was different. Free.</p><p>Keiji could tell it just by looking at him. This was someone who did what he wanted and damn the consequences. Even if the whole world was against him, he’d still live free and as he pleased. He shone so brightly, that even just being in his presence made Keiji start to entertain thoughts that he’d long forgotten about.</p><p>Dreams of quitting his boring job and making a living from his art, living off his passion. Being free from these shackles of endless, boring work and too little money in return for it.</p><p>But Keiji wasn’t that man. He’s a coward, and so he’ll stay chained to this city and this job for the rest of his life.</p><p>He sighs. Whoever that man had been, he hardly feels fit to have been in his presence. Just his mere existence dulls that bright flame.</p><p>
  <em> It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m never going to see him again. </em>
</p><p>(A part of him still hopes. The childish part that read fantasy novels and dreamed of escape, wished for his only magical adventures to take him away from the mundanity of life.)</p><p>It’s dark by the time he gets back to the office, and he lights a gas lamp as he settles down once more at his desk. The document is stacked thick, hundreds of pages long, and Keiji still has more than half of them to get through. After this deadline, he has another one in a few days time. Then another, and another.</p><p>It never ends.</p><p>But it won’t get done unless he does it.</p><p>The words on the page blur before his eyes, neat typewriter print melting into long serpentine lines that weave across the paper. </p><p>Martial law, military employment contract terms, weapons acquisitions.</p><p>War, war, war.</p><p>That’s all that seems to be going on these days, and Keiji’s so sick of it. How many more deaths are they going to see?</p><p>With a tired sigh, Keiji puts pen to paper.</p><p>It’s pitch black outside, and the inside of the office is chilly. He shivers.</p><p>The light from the gas lamp is so cosy, soft orange that lulls him to sleep.</p><p>
  <em> It’s so bright, and warm... </em>
</p><p>He could almost close his eyes right now.</p><p>
  <em> Just to rest them for a second. </em>
</p><p>The sound of the bell above the door makes him startle, slashing a line of red ink across the page he was editing. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, Keiji gets to his feet. He must have dozed off for a second. </p><p>He can hear footsteps in the main office. Who could be here at this time of night?</p><p>“What a drab old place,” he hears a voice say, tone disgusted.</p><p>When he opens the door to the main office, he spots the intruder.</p><p>Dressed in a rich navy blue velvet cloak trimmed with dark feathers, the intruder stands tall in the middle of the room, disdainfully looking around at the office. The curly brown hair atop their head is perfectly coiffed and arranged, and even from a distance Keiji can tell the striking beauty of the person, accentuated by the bold make-up on their eyes and lips. There’s a beret perched carefully atop that perfect head of hair, and sapphire and opal glint in their earlobes.</p><p>The stranger's eyes fall on Keiji, soft brown ringed with shimmering eyeshadow. “My, what do we have here?” they say.</p><p>Unlike the man earlier, who had seemed eccentric and bizarre but ultimately harmless, Keiji doesn’t trust this stranger. Everything about them, from their poise to the calculating look in their eyes, screams <em> danger. </em></p><p>“You’re rather drab too,” they say, eyes assessing Keiji. Almost anyone would look drab next to this person, Keiji thinks, dressed as they are in fine fabrics and glittering jewels.</p><p>“We’re closed,” he tells them sternly. “You’ll have to come back during the day and make an appointment to speak to an advisor.”</p><p>“I’m not here for an advisor.” The stranger doesn’t move.</p><p>Keiji fixes flat eyes on the stranger once more, and moves past them to open the office door. “You have to leave,” he says again firmly.</p><p>The stranger laughs, and it sounds like the tinkling of bells. <em> Warning bells. </em>“You sure are brave,” they croon, “challenging the Witch of the Waste like this.”</p><p>The Witch of the Waste?</p><p>Sudden fear freezes Keiji. He can’t do anything as, with a whirl of feathers and fabric, the witch spreads their arms wide and transforms. From human to whirlwind, they gush past Keiji - pass through him - feeling like a cold breeze over his goose pimpled flesh. Papers go flying from every desk, fluttering through the air like leaves.</p><p>For a moment, Keiji genuinely believes he’s about to die. But there’s no pain, nothing except that cold chill.</p><p>Once past him, they transform back just as they reach the doorway. Ears brush the shell of Keiji’s ear. “You’ll have fun with that curse,” they whisper. “And you can’t even tell anyone about it. How sad.”</p><p>Keiji lifts his head to look at them in confusion, and the witch gives a sinister smile that makes their beautiful face look ugly and twisted. “Tell Bokuto that Oikawa says hello.”</p><p>Then they’re gone, and Keiji’s left alone in the dark.</p><p>Bokuto?</p><p>Oikawa?</p><p>The gas lamp has gone out, and with shaking hands Keiji relights it. It’s only once it’s relit and he’s crouching to pick papers from the floor, cursing his bad posture for the ache in his back, that he notices his hands.</p><p>They’re not the hands he had before.</p><p>Gone are the young but calloused and ink-stained hands he knows are his own, and in their place are wrinkled hands. The fingers and joints move as he flexes his own hands, aching in an unfamiliar way. There’s no mirror in the office, but Keiji doesn’t need one to know that this is the witch's curse on him.</p><p>He’d always joked he was old at heart, preferring the company of books and his worn armchair over friends on a night out, and now he was old inside and out.</p><p>When he wakes up the next morning, still old and feeling the chill of the early hour like he never has before, Keiji takes a sick day from work for the first time in years.</p><p>He packs a satchel of food from the kitchen, and dressing in his baggy overcoat he sets out.</p><p>There’s only one thing to do now: find Bokuto, and hope that he can break the curse.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It is, unequivocally, the day that his entire life changes. If this were a novel he were writing, Keiji knows this is the point at which he’d start the story. The point at which everything changes. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A kind middle-aged man and his son offer a lift to Keiji, making space on the back of their hay cart for him.</p><p>With nothing else to do but watch the view behind him and wince every time the cart rolls over a vicious bump, Keiji does what he does best and overthinks.</p><p>There’s a sense of irony that this was what it took to finally leave his job, to escape the feeling of entrapment he felt in that city, in that government office. There’s a stack of paper, a quill and some ink in his satchel. Black ink only, no red.</p><p>Behind him, the city seems so small amongst the rolling valleys and hills. </p><p>The middle-aged man seems worried for Keiji. “What on earth could you want up there in the Folding Valley?” he asks Keiji, looking worriedly between the hunchback old man and the steep, rocky cliff that awaits him. The fog is thick and cold this far up into the mountains, leaving everything damp.</p><p>Keiji hums. “Inspiration, perhaps,” he says. “A solution, possibly.”</p><p>“There’s only wizards and witches that way,” the man replies.</p><p>“Maybe they’re all the same thing.” </p><p>Climbing the mountain is hard. Keiji has never been the most athletic person ever, but his now old bones creak with protest at every step he takes. At one point he thinks he’s found a walking stick, and what he is instead rewarded with is an excitable scarecrow, with a pumpkin for a head.</p><p>“I thought you were one of the witch’s cronies,” he tells the scarecrow, watching it bounce in circles around him. “Now, shoo. I have places to be.”</p><p>The pumpkin-head scarecrow follows him nonetheless. Like a dog, it trails on his heels, and it seems to respond when Keiji, in a fit of dry humour, tells it to ‘fetch’. It brings him a stick, depositing it at his feet proudly.</p><p>“If only you could bring me house with a warm fire,” he jokes under his breath.</p><p>He regrets it not even an hour later when the scarecrow brings him Bokuto’s Moving Castle.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The inside of the castle is warm, heated well by the dwindling fire in the massive fireplace that seems to take up half the room. It’s dark inside, but Keiji can make out shelves of disorganised scrolls and books, tables covered in dirty dishes and open books with the spines cracked. Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, and Keiji almost trips on a stack of jars on the floor as he shuffles over to the fireplace.</p><p>“What a mess,” he mutters, settling down in the chair in front of the fire. “If anywhere ever needed a good reorganisation, it’s this place.”</p><p>Chin tucked into the scarf around his neck, and body soaking up the warmth of the fire, he’s just about drifting off when a voice sounds out. “Why, are you offering?”</p><p>Keiji’s eyes flash open.</p><p>Two catlike eyes and a playful smirk watch him from within the fire. </p><p>The fire just spoke. </p><p>The fire, which has a face and eyes, just spoke to him. Keiji’s threshold for weird things must be getting higher, because this isn’t even the bizarrest thing he’s experienced this week.</p><p>“Are you Bokuto-san?” he asks.</p><p>The fire laughs. “God, no. I’m Kuroo, the fire demon.” He lets a puff of flame out of his mouth as he speaks.</p><p>Keiji leans forward. “Well then, Kuroo-san. Can you break this curse I’m under?”</p><p>Kuroo hums, inspecting Keiji carefully. “Well, sure. Easy.” His face takes on a sleazy look (is it even possible for fire to look sleazy, Keiji muses). “For a price.”</p><p>“Name it.”</p><p>“If you break the spell that chains me to this place, I’ll break your curse as quick as a flash.”</p><p>“So a deal with a demon,” Keiji says skeptically. He’s spent enough years editing legal documents to know that you should always check the terms and conditions before agreeing to anything. <em> Or else scumbag fire demons think they can exploit you. Well, no thank you. I’ve had enough exploitation for one lifetime, and I didn’t come here to get exploited some more. </em></p><p>“You could call it that,” Kuroo shrugs. </p><p>“And you’ll keep your end of the deal? You promise.”</p><p>“Demons don’t make promises.”</p><p>Keiji raises an eyebrow. “Then I suggest you look elsewhere, Kuroo-san.”</p><p>“Wait, wait!” The fire demon pleads, having a sudden change of heart when he realises Keiji isn’t someone to mess around with. “Have some pity on a poor exploited demon, huh? I was chained here by a contract to Bokuto, and he works me to <em> death </em>.”</p><p>“You look very alive to me.”</p><p>“Very funny! I’m the one who keeps this castle moving, does all the hard work, but Bokuto doesn’t appreciate me.”</p><p>“How sad,” Keiji says dryly. <em> Sounds familiar. </em>It’s becoming hard to pay attention now, the warmth of the fire relaxing him.</p><p>Kuroo puffs out a smoke ring. “Alright, here’s the deal. I’m not normally quite so lenient with my terms, but I guess I can make an exception. Take it or leave it, this is the only offer I’ll make you. Figure out the secret contract that binds me and I’ll be free. Then I’ll break your contract, alright old man? Old man? Did you seriously just fall asleep?”</p><p>Keiji snores on, unawares. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Keiji meets Bokuto’s unwilling apprentice Kenma the next morning, when a loud knocking comes on the door. The younger man reluctantly slopes down to answer it, accepting the King’s letter from the Mayor with a sigh of resignation. He gives Keiji a suspicious look when he shuts the door and locks it again. Keiji does his best to look as if he belongs here, and hadn’t broken in last night.</p><p>Well, technically Kuroo let him in. </p><p>“Who’s this old man?”</p><p>“Don’t give me that filthy look,” Kuroo says, amused. “I had nothing to do with it, he wandered in by himself from the Wastes.”</p><p><em> Lies </em>. Keiji raises an eyebrow at the demon.</p><p>Kenma doesn’t bother with a reply, and then rolls his eyes when the doorbell goes again. Keiji just watches, warming his hands on the fire Kuroo gives out, as Kenma answers the door once more. </p><p>After the third time of Kenma answering the door and collecting different letters of invitation from the king, Keiji starts to get an idea of what’s going on. Each time the door opens, it opens to a different location. Clearly there’s some sort of magic at play here, Keiji muses as he twists the door lock to green and pokes his head out, enjoying a blast of wind and rain to the face. They’re back in the Wastes again.</p><p>And the king’s letters, well… Keiji’s read over enough documentation on identity fraud to know that clearly this Bokuto is masquerading as not just one, but several other wizards.</p><p>He’s yet to meet this elusive Bokuto though. Perhaps he doesn’t even exist, and it’s just Kuroo and Kenma in his fake-wizard get-up behind the ruse. <em> More identity fraud? </em></p><p>Kuroo protests when Keiji insists on cooking breakfast on him. “I’m a demon, not a fire!” he insists. “I don’t let anyone but Bokuto cook on me, Kenma can tell you that.”</p><p>“He’s a whiney demon,” Kenma says. He looks entertained by Kuroo’s struggles. </p><p>“He’s a fire demon,” Keiji says, “and I’m going to cook on him.” He leans in close to Kuroo, raising an eyebrow. “Unless you want Bokuto to hear of our deal?”</p><p>Kuroo huffs angrily, and a flame like a strand of hair flops over one of his eyes. “I should have never let you in.”</p><p>Just then, the bell on the door rings, and the lock swivels to black. “Oh, he’s back,” Kenma says blandly. The door slams open, and in strides the beautiful stranger from before.</p><p>
  <em> It’s him? He’s Bokuto? </em>
</p><p>He looks slightly worse for wear, diamond patterned coat stained with streaks of mud and dirt. The spiky owl-like hair seems a bit deflated, but it’s definitely him. Keiji’s throat is dry. So it wasn’t a dream. He’s just as ethereally beautiful as before, golden eyes glimmering like starlight. He strides over and stops beside Keiji and the fireplace, bringing with him that familiar smell of clean laundry and spring after a long winter.</p><p>“Wow,” Bokuto enthuses, eyes twinkling. His voice is just as loud as Keiji remembered it. “You’re so obedient, Kuroo!”</p><p>“I was bullied!” Kuroo insists, peeking round from the edge of the pan that Keiji’s frying bacon in.</p><p>“Hm!” Bokuto hums. Then his eyes turn to Keiji, as if just remembering there is a stranger inside his magical moving castle. “Oh, who are you?”</p><p>Keiji makes a quick decision. “I’m your new housekeeper,” he says. “You can call me Akaashi.”</p><p>Bokuto tilts a head to one side, confused. “I didn’t hire a housekeeper.”</p><p>“I hired myself. I’ve never seen such a disorganised house before. I’ll organise it for you.”</p><p>Anyone with an ounce of stranger danger would perhaps question the strange old man inviting himself into their home, but Bokuto accepts it without question, chucking eggshells into Kuroo’s mouth. “Oh, okay! It’s always nice to have more people around. Kenma and Kuroo are rather boring company sometimes. I’m sure you’ll be fun, Akashi!”</p><p>“It’s Akaashi,” he corrects, and then thinks <em> I don’t think anyone’s ever found my company fun before.  </em></p><p>It’s Bokuto who’s the fun one, who always says or does something completely out of the blue that throws Akaashi for a loop. He’s an unpredictable wild card like Keiji’s never seen before.</p><p>Keiji can’t get enough of it, can’t look away from that blazing brightness. He’s only known Bokuto for a day or so, but he thinks he’s like a shooting star. Shining so brightly and lighting up the darkness, but burning out so quickly.</p><p>“So,” Bokuto asks casually once they’re all sat at the table. Kenma had reluctantly cleared space for them to sit, and flipped his middle finger up at Kuroo when he whined about being left out. “What’s in your pocket?”</p><p>Keiji pauses. In his pocket? Last he’d checked, there was nothing in there. However, when he slips a hand in there he finds a small piece of red paper. “What is this?” he asks.</p><p>“Who knows?” Bokuto says with a smile. “Isn’t it exciting? Here, here, give it here!” He beckons excitedly. Keiji passes it over, but before it can touch Bokuto’s hand it bursts into flame. The embers gently float down and sear a mark onto the table.</p><p>Keiji leans forward. “I don’t recognise that symbol,” he says.</p><p>“It’s ancient sorcery,” Bokuto says easily. “I think it says, uh, <em> ‘He who catches a falling star, oh heartless man, your heart shall be mine </em>’.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” Was it about Bokuto? </p><p>“Eh, who cares,” Bokuto shrugs. “Shame about the table, though.” With one strong swipe, he brushes the ashes off the tabletop, leaving behind unblemished wood. The casual display of powerful magic has Keiji gaping, looking between Bokuto’s relaxed expression and the table. </p><p>Judging by Kenma’s bored expression, these sorts of things are commonplace. <em> Incredible.  </em></p><p>Bokuto gets to his feet with a big sigh, arms stretching wide. “Well, I’m off!” He tips the rest of his food into Kuroo’s awaiting mouth. “Have fun organising!” he calls back at Keiji. “It was lovely to meet you, Akaashi! Also Kuroo, move the castle a hundred kilometres please.”</p><p>“Aye aye, captain.”</p><p>With one last bright smile and a booming laugh, Bokuto bounds upstairs.</p><p>Keiji looks around at the piles of books and papers with food stains and dust coating them, at the unorganised cupboards and shelves that line the room. <em> Well, </em> he thinks. <em> I may as well get to work.</em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The castle is gigantic, a mish-mash of different machinery and mechanics, with hundreds and thousands of winding corridors and secret rooms throughout, and with just as many books and scrolls.</p><p>Over the next several weeks, Keiji devotes his time to tidying and organising the entire castle. Kenma helps occasionally, letting out a sigh as Keiji drags him away from whatever spellwork he’s experimenting with to heft piles of books up the rickety stairs.</p><p>Bokuto appears to poke his head in every now and then, watching and not offering any assistance as Keiji in his old-man body clambers up a ladder to tuck books away in the library. </p><p>“I didn’t even know I owned this book,” he tells Keiji, holding the book one-handed as he munches toast with the other.</p><p>Keiji snatches the book away from him, brushing crumbs off it. “Don’t put your buttery fingers on the books. They’re ancient and priceless.”</p><p>“They’re my books!”</p><p>“Clearly, you don’t know how to take care of them, because this one has damp.”</p><p>Bokuto mopes and whines and pleads, making sad owl-eyes at Keiji through the gaps in the bookshelves. Eventually, he starts helping Keiji put the books away, leaning over Keiji to place books on their higher shelves. Keiji tries to pretend he doesn’t notice the heat of Bokuto’s chest pressed against his back.</p><p>The castle walks its way through the countryside, and Keiji watches it with awe from the balcony. Endless green countryside and lush green forest, with snow-tipped mountains leering in the distance. Winding rivers lead to glistening sapphire lakes that seem to be oceans. It’s everything Keiji has ever wished to see and more, all viewed so beautifully from above.</p><p>The pumpkin-headed scarecrow makes a reappearance as well, situating itself atop the castle. It seems to take a liking to Kenma, following the wizards apprentice around the meadows they stop in, eagerly offering assistance in doing the washing.</p><p>When Bokuto’s around, the castle is full of fun and the mood is light. Kuroo comes out of his shell a bit more, playfully bantering with Bokuto and giving Kenma a chance to tuck himself away in a quiet spot with Keiji to read.</p><p>But when Bokuto isn’t around, on the nights that he returns smelling of gunpowder and fire, tiredness seeping through every pore of his skin, are much more sombre. Keiji doesn’t dare ask where he goes, and why he comes back so late.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s almost pitch-black by the time Bokuto returns back to the castle, dragging arms laden with sharp feathers through the door. Each step feels like agony, talons scraping across the wooden floors. </p><p>There’s a chair perfectly situated just in front of the fireplace, and with a heave of exhaustion Bokuto collapses into it. He’s shivering, body cold all over from the freezing clouds he flew through. He drags his feet up onto the hearth to warm them.</p><p>The castle is quiet. Everyone else is fast asleep.</p><p>Kuroo emerges. “Disgusting. You reek of burnt flesh.”</p><p>Agonising pain wracks Bokuto and he heaves, letting out a grunt. Slowly, the black feathers that cover his entire body start to recede, melting away like snow in sunlight. The taloned feet give way to bare and bruised flesh, coated in soot and blood.</p><p>Kuroo watches him carefully. “How is it out there?”</p><p>“It’s bad,” Bokuto says tiredly, shaking his head. “The whole country is ablaze. There were others out there, like me, that attacked me.”</p><p>“Wizards?” Kuroo asks. Bokuto nods. Kuroo scoffs. “Those bastards. They’ll be the ones crying when they can’t regain human form.” There’s a knowing tone to this voice, eyes watching Bokuto’s carefully.</p><p>Bokuto lets out a disapproving hum. “They’ll just forget they ever knew how to cry. How very sad.” Compared to his normal vibrant personality, he seems muted. The horrors of the war weigh heavy, and the screams of those dying still ring in his ears even once he escapes back to the safety and quiet of the castle.</p><p>The fighting had been fierce this evening, and bloody scrapes along Bokuto’s side are a reminder of that.</p><p>A sleepy groan from across the room catches his attention. Every muscle aches as he pulls himself to his feet. Pulling the thick curtain open, Bokuto peers down at where Akaashi sleeps.</p><p>In sleep, the effects of the curse fade. Gone is the wrinkled and wizened face of the old man he knows so well, and in its place the peaceful sleeping face of a young man.</p><p>Beautiful, Bokuto thinks. Akaashi’s long eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, lips smacking together as he mumbles. Unaware as he is, Bokuto thinks he looks even more beautiful like this. Softer, more vulnerable.</p><p>Carefully, he reaches out to brush a finger along the soft skin of Akaashi’s cheek. Then he retracts, closing the curtain behind him and leaving Akaashi to slumber.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Like this?”</p><p>Bokuto enlists Keiji’s help sometimes with his magic. It’s not often, but he does. Keiji holds a ring up in the air. It’s as wide as his arm span, a metal hoop big enough to fit a person through.</p><p>“A bit higher,” Bokuto says, tilting his head to one side.</p><p>Keiji lifts it higher. “Hm, lower maybe?”</p><p>He lowers it. “Argh, now it’s too low!” Bokuto says, clutching at his hair.</p><p>Keiji sighs. This is normally how helping Bokuto goes. He asks for help, and then spends the entire time working himself up into an anxious mess because nothing goes right. </p><p>“Don’t worry about the position of it,” he tells Bokuto. “Just go ahead, I’ll compensate for it.”</p><p>Bokuto frowns at him. “Are you sure? What if I hurt you?”</p><p>“I can handle it.”</p><p>“Alright then.”</p><p>Keiji’s arm strains slightly as he holds the hoop in place. Bokuto pulls an arm back, like he’s winding up to throw a ball, and then flings forward. A fireball comes bursting from his hand, aimed straight for the hoop. It fizzles out before it gets there, and Bokuto slumps with a whine.</p><p>“Another failure.”</p><p>“You almost had it,” Keiji says. “Perhaps increase the size slightly, that should help. You released your arm too late as well, I-”</p><p>“-need to have the hoop higher,” Bokuto agrees, and then his face splits into a smile. “You’re the best, Akaashi!”</p><p>“I’m just doing what I can.”</p><p>They spend the next hour practicing, until Keiji’s arms ache so much he can’t hold the hoop up anymore, and there’s burns all over his knuckles. He sinks into the nearest armchair with a groan, and then flinches when fingers grab his hand. “I hurt you,” Bokuto says quietly.</p><p>Keiji pulls his hand back slightly. “It’s fine.”</p><p>“But how will you do anything like this?”</p><p>“I’ve worked with worse,” Keiji says, thinking of the time when he sprained his wrist but had to keep working. It hadn’t healed for months because he’d pushed it so far, and because his writing pace had been so slow he’d had to work longer hours to meet his deadlines. Konoha had scolded him at the time, but what was he supposed to do? It wasn’t like he could stop working.</p><p>Bokuto’s eyes darken, and he frowns. “You shouldn’t have to.” His grip tightens on Keiji’s hand. “As long as you’re here, you’ll never have to do that again. I promise.”</p><p>Keiji’s heart is soft. “Thank you, Bokuto-san.”</p><p>Bokuto doesn’t let go of Keiji’s hand, instead just gently playing with his fingers. He must be using magic somehow, because the burns and blisters are starting to heal. Bokuto’s hand is warm and solid in Keiji’s. “Hey, Akaashi,” he asks quietly. “What was your life before you came here like?”</p><p>Keiji thinks for a second. “Lonely,” he settles on as an answer. “And drab. I was stuck in a monotonous job I hated and couldn’t escape. It became my whole life, swallowing up everything else until it was all I had.”</p><p>“What about family?” </p><p>“I don’t have one,” Keiji admits. “The closest thing would be my friend Konoha.” He turns to face Bokuto, and sees the tears beading in the wizard’s eyes. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing,” Bokuto sniffles. Both his hands are busy holding Keiji’s, so Keiji uses his spare hand to pull out a tissue and dab at the corner of Bokuto’s eyes. “I’m just… are you happy here, Akaashi?”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“I mean, isn’t it the same here? You’re stuck in this castle with us, doing boring organising all day. I don’t even pay you! I’m horrible!”</p><p>“Bokuto-san, no-” Keiji begins.</p><p>“I make you slave away all day working for me, and you can’t even leave! You can’t see your friend, oh my god.”</p><p>“It is not the same,” Keiji says sternly before Bokuto can fall into one of his depressive spirals. “If anything, I’m more free now than I’ve ever been. I’m here willingly. I can leave whenever I want to, but I <em> want </em>to stay here with you.”</p><p>Bokuto blinks at him, teary-eyed still. “Really?”</p><p>“Really.”</p><p>“But what about your passion? Your friends?”</p><p>“I consider you my friend, Bokuto-san,” he says, and watches as Bokuto gapes. “Besides, my passion is writing, and I can do that anywhere. Actually, being here with you all in this castle, and travelling to see so many wonderful places… It's finally helped me to get out of the rut I’ve been stuck in for years. I have all these ideas now, I just want to start writing them all down.”</p><p>“What’s stopping you?” Bokuto asks, dragging Keiji to his feet. “Here, I’ll get you some paper and ink! You can start writing today! I have some really fancy paper too. Not that cheap stuff you get in the city.”</p><p>It occurs to Keiji, as Bokuto is dragging him along the corridors to the library, that perhaps Bokuto was just worried that Keiji was going to leave him. He watches Bokuto’s back as the man rummages through his newly organised shelves. “Are you lonely, Bokuto-san?” he asks.</p><p>Bokuto pauses, back muscles tensing. “Of course not. Why would I be, I’ve got Kuroo and Kenma.”</p><p>Keiji sees straight through the lie. “Bokuto-san.”</p><p>“I mean, it’s not like I’m alone in this castle here. I’ve got people! Yeah, Kenma doesn’t talk much, and Kuroo’s stuck in the fireplace, but it’s fine! Neither of them like hugs either, which sucks, but it’s whatever!”</p><p>“It’s okay to be lonely,” Keiji says softly. “And if you ever need someone to hug, I…”</p><p>He doesn’t finish his sentence before the paper goes fluttering and Bokuto throws himself into his arms. Keiji lets out a small <em> oof </em>as Bokuto crashes into him, and then his legs are lifting off the ground as Bokuto crushes him to his chest. The fabric of his shirt is soft - silk, or satin, or something else equally as expensive - and the smell of pine needles is stronger here.</p><p>It feels like the safest place in the world to be, wrapped in Bokuto’s broad arms and pressed against his chest. Keiji could just hide away here forever. “Thank you,” he hears Bokuto mutter into his ear. “I was lonely.”</p><p>“You have me now,” Keiji promises. “I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>Bokuto suddenly remembers about the paper, and draws back quickly. “Ah, where did I put it?” Keiji’s left feeling cold. He wishes Bokuto would hug him again.</p><p>With a bright smile, Bokuto passes over the paper and ink. “Here you go!”</p><p>Keiji takes the paper carefully. It even feels expensive to the touch. “Thank you.”</p><p>“What are you going to write about? Bokuto asks with enthusiasm.</p><p>“I haven’t decided yet.”</p><p>“Why not write about a wizard like me, hm?”</p><p>“You’ll get a big head if I do,” Keiji says flatly. “I’d be better off writing about Kuroo-san.”</p><p>“Akaashi, no!” Bokuto gasps dramatically, clutching at his chest. “This betrayal!”</p><p>“I hear demons are all the rage these days.”</p><p>Bokuto’s definitely sulking now. “Wizards are better. Don’t you agree, Akaashi? Wizards are way better.”</p><p>“I suppose so,” Keiji says with a small smile. Bokuto continues whining and griping as they make their way out of the library, and Keiji resigns himself to not getting any writing done for hours. Not like Bokuto attached to his side like a limpet.</p><p>Neither of them are lonely anymore. Not when they have each other.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Keiji and Kenma go down to the town port one day, running errands to collect more food and supplies. They’re midway through buying fish when someone yells from the quays, and then almost everyone abandons what they’re doing to rush over to the water's edge.</p><p><em> What’s going on? </em> Keiji wonders. He and Kenma slope closer to see.</p><p>“They’re back!” someone says.</p><p>“It’s a warship!” someone cries.</p><p>“Is that smoke?” another asks.</p><p>Struggling into the quay is a shiny silver warship - one of theirs, not the enemies - now riddled with dents and blast holes in the hull, furiously leaking water. The crewmates are flinging themselves off it and into the water nearby, and the onlookers get to quick work throwing ropes in to save them.</p><p>Keiji thinks he sees one of Oikawa’s blob men minions in the crowds, and quickly tugs Kenma back into a dark corner with him. “Careful,” he whispers, and with a nod Kenma pulls his hood down over his face further, hiding his distinctive dyed blond hair. </p><p>It’s best to retreat now, before they risk the blob man seeing them and reporting back to Oikawa. Then their safe space here would be compromised, and Bokuto would have to ask Kuroo to move them elsewhere.</p><p>Before they can move, however, there’s a piercing whistle that fills the air. It starts quiet, and then builds in volume, before culminating in a loud <em> boom </em> as the bombs land into the port, sending a tidal wave of water towards them.</p><p>“Up there,” Kenma says, pointing. “The enemy airship.”</p><p>The hulking airship soars above them, carefree. Hundreds of thousands of papers come fluttering down from it. As Keiji and Kenma hurry their way through the busy streets back to the castle, they hear soldiers barking out orders to civilians. “Don’t look at the sheets! It’s enemy propaganda! Get home and stay indoors!”</p><p>It’s so easy to forget, Keiji realises once he’s back safe inside the castle, that outside the confines of his new home, there is a war raging on. A violent and bloody war, where every day people are losing their lives and their homes. Bombings and attacks like that are commonplace now, and fear is written onto the face of the townspeople they walked past.</p><p>Bokuto’s Moving Castle is an escape from all of that, a chance to forget about the horrors and realities of war and enjoy the beautiful scenery as the castle rambles over mountaintops.</p><p>But they don’t live in their own little bubble. Every day, the war creeps closer and closer until Keiji knows that Bokuto won’t be able to keep running from it anymore.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The castle fills with a piercing screech one day. “Akaashi!”</p><p>Keiji looks up from the bottles of potions he’s making an itemised list of. It’s a miracle Kenma can ever find anything he needs here, given that half of them aren’t labelled at all. Did he just imagine that yell?</p><p>Bokuto’s voice comes again. “Akaashi!” Footsteps bound on the wooden staircase, and then Bokuto throws himself down seconds later. He’s dressed only in a towel around his waist, and Keiji’s cheeks would be blushing red right now if he wasn’t so distracted by the forest green hair atop Bokuto’s head. “What did you do to the shampoo bottles? You mixed them all up!”</p><p>“I organised them,” Keiji responds.</p><p>“You ruined my hair!”</p><p>Keiji’s never seen Bokuto so dramatic before. “Your hair looks nice,” he tries to placate, but it doesn’t work.</p><p>“It’s hopeless,” Bokuto sobs, flinging himself into the chair by the fireplace. “How humiliating! I look ridiculous.”</p><p>“You’re not wrong,” Kuroo pipes up from the fireplace, and then shrinks back as Akaashi shoots him a glare.</p><p>Before Keiji’s eyes, the hair on Bokuto’s head starts to change colour. From green to purple to yellow, and finally to silvery white, with black at the roots. It suits him, surprisingly. “This colour suits you,” Keiji says honestly. “You look like a great horned owl.”</p><p>Bokuto doesn’t respond, just sobs into his hands. Even his hair looks droopy now.</p><p>Uh oh, this is bad.</p><p>Keiji’s grown quite accustomed to Bokuto’s mood swings over the last few weeks. He’d like to consider himself a master in lifting Bokuto’s spirits again, knowing exactly what to say and do to get the wizard back up on his feet again, rather than curled in a fetal position and sobbing because Kenma told him that the main character dies at the end of the novel he’s reading.</p><p>But this is perhaps a step too far. Nothing he says seems to be getting through to Bokuto.</p><p>“I’m done for,” Bokuto wails, head in his hands. “I look hideous.”</p><p>“You look beautiful, Bokuto-san,” Keiji assures him.</p><p>“What’s the point in living, if you don’t look beautiful?” is Bokuto’s only reply. Then the castle starts to shake around them, shadows stretching in all directions.</p><p>“Oi, oi!” Kuroo calls from the fireplace, worriedly clutching onto his log of wood. “Cut it out, Bo, or you’ll take the whole castle down with you!”</p><p>What on Earth is going on? Keiji wonders frantically as he grips the table, trying to stay standing amidst all the shaking. Kenma’s head pokes out from underneath it. “He’s calling the spirits of darkness,” he explains, seeing Keiji’s confusion. “He did this last time someone said owls are ugly.”</p><p><em> How dramatic </em>, Keiji thinks wryly. Really, Bokuto’s mood swings are like that of a childs, if a child was an all-powerful wizard capable of destroying towns and cities with his pinkie finger. He tries again to get through to Bokuto, stepping forward to place a placating hand on Bokuto’s shoulder. “Bokuto-san, you can just dye your hair again,” he says, trying logic this time.</p><p>It has the opposite desired effect. Bokuto starts to secrete slime, thick green slime like mucus that clings to Keiji’s hand no matter how hard he shakes.</p><p>Fine, Keiji decides. If reason won’t get through to him, perhaps scolding will. “I’ve had enough of your dramatics, Bokuto-san,” he tells him. “‘What’s the point in living if you don’t look beautiful’? What a vain thing to say. I’ve never once been beautiful, but that doesn’t mean my life isn’t worth living. Unless that’s what you’re trying to say?”</p><p>“Akaashi-” Kenma begins.</p><p>“Oi, oi,” Kuroo says. “What’s all this, old man?”</p><p>Keiji can just tell that on the tip of their tongues are some platitudes about how he actually is beautiful, and handsome, but that’s not what he wants to hear. In the end it doesn’t actually matter, what matters is that even if he is plain and boring and not beautiful and bright like Bokuto, that doesn’t mean his life isn’t worth living. </p><p>When Keiji had first seen Bokuto, when he appeared suddenly beside him in that dark alleyway, all boisterous confidence and brightness, the idle fleeting thought that he was a star had crossed Keiji’s mind. Next to Bokuto, he’d felt entirely eclipsed by that brightness.</p><p>He’d been starstruck at first, in awe of how he was even allowed to be in the presence of someone who shone so brightly, but as time had gone on the veil had fallen from Keiji’s eyes. Bokuto was a wizard, powerful and majestic and beautiful, but he was still human.</p><p>With a huff, Keiji storms for the door.</p><p>“Where are you going?” Kenma asks, trying to grab onto his sleeve. “Akaashi!”</p><p>Keiji ignores them all.</p><p>It’s raining heavily outside, thick storm blue clouds coating the whole sky and casting the world into semi-darkness. The rain is cold, soaking all the way through his thick coat and jumper and freezing him to the bone, but Keiji hardly notices it.</p><p>
  <em> What’s the point in living if you don’t look beautiful? </em>
</p><p>It’s not anything he hasn’t thought before about himself, albeit in different words. He’d ask himself before he went to bed some nights. Whether there was a point in living like this. He’d look in the mirror and see that pale tired face, the same plain one that had stared him in the eye for over twenty years now, and wonder whether there was a point to living other than just going through the motions every day.</p><p>If there was one good thing about Oikawa’s curse, it was the sense of freedom it had granted him. </p><p>No one looked good at this age, Keiji thought, staring at his distorted reflection in the lake, pockmarked by raindrops. </p><p>There’s the sound of gasping behind him, and Kenma stumbles over out-of-breath. “Akaashi,” he says, panting. “You need to come back, Bokuto’s out of control. You know how to handle him the best.”</p><p>Keiji sighs, and follows Kenma back in.</p><p>Bokuto’s secreted slime has spread all the way across the ground floor by the time Keiji steps into the castle, sticky underfoot. It looks like a giant slug has walked all over the house. Head resting on the hearth, the slime from Bokuto’s head is slowly creeping closer to Kuroo, threatening to put out his flames.</p><p>“Oh good, you’re back,” Kuroo says. “Hey, I don’t suppose you could move him? Or I might die, y’know.”</p><p>Keiji wades his way through the slime, now ankle-high. He’s just in time to scoop up Kuroo as the slime reaches his log, carefully passing over the scoop to Kenma. </p><p>“Don’t you dare drop me,” Kuroo threatens.</p><p>“Hm,” Kenma says.</p><p>Surveying Bokuto, Keiji lets a small smile creep onto your lips. “You’re so dramatic, Bokuto-san.” A small groan comes from the slime-covered form that was formerly Bokuto.</p><p>That’s just what Bokuto is like, Keiji is now realising. He’s vain, and self-centered, and overdramatic, and moody, and a hundred other words Keiji could think of. He says what he thinks, and shows every emotion on his face, whether good or bad. </p><p>These clothes are ruined already, Keiji tells himself as he rolls up his sleeves and pulls Bokuto’s prone form onto his shoulder. He’s heavy, which is unsurprising given all the muscle he’s packing. It’s hard to get a solid grip on him through the slime, but Keiji manages.</p><p>The real challenge is dragging him all the way upstairs in this elderly body. Keiji grits his teeth, and climbs.</p><p>About half way up, he happens to look down. Lying a few steps down is Bokuto’s now-discarded towel.</p><p>The towel that had been the only thing covering his nudity.</p><p>Keiji freezes.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bokuto sleeps for a long time after that ordeal, after he’s finally been rinsed of slime and set back into his bed. </p><p>Keiji’s never seen his bedroom before. It was the one room he had been explicitly banned from tidying, though he imagines that now extends to the bathroom too.</p><p>(“You can’t tidy my room,” Bokuto had said, arms blocking the doorway. </p><p>“Why not?” Keiji asked, crossing his own arms across his chest. “I’m sure it’s a mess in there.”</p><p>“It’s an <em> organised  </em>mess,” Bokuto stressed. “There’s order in the disorder.”</p><p>He looks insanely proud of himself for that sentence, and Keiji lets out an indulgent smile. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t tidy your room. But if a mould culture starts growing in one of your rare books, that’s entirely your fault.”</p><p>“Akaashi!” Bokuto whined, aghast. “Don’t you have faith in me?”)</p><p>He can see now why Bokuto had refused to let him tidy in. Every spare centimetre of the room is filled with stuff. The walls aren’t visible at all, bizarre items and objects stacked around, and there’s only a narrow strip of floor visible leading to the gigantic double-bed.</p><p>Books are piled on tables, and test tubes and vials sit in jars scattered around the room. There’s the gentle sounds of chimes and bells, dangling down from the ceiling, rocking slightly with the motion of the castle. Keiji doesn’t recognise half the things in here, from carved and painted wooden masks to ornate swords and gilded statues as tall as he is. There’s a faint smell in the air, a clean floral smell that reminds him of laundry detergent.</p><p>Bokuto is curled up on the side in his bed, turned away from Keiji. Kenma and Kuroo had said he probably felt very embarrassed about his outburst earlier, but Keiji thinks he’s more embarrassed that he had to be showered down by an old man.</p><p>“I brought you some tea,” Keiji says quietly. He brushes dust off an old tome on Bokuto’s bedside table, and sets it down. The lump under the duvet shifts, but doesn’t emerge. He can see some white tufts of hair poking out from under it.</p><p>
  <em> Maybe he’s still sulking about his hair. </em>
</p><p>Keiji waits a minute to see if Bokuto will appear. A metronome ticks from across the room, adorned with a gigantic eye decoration. Bokuto doesn’t appear.</p><p>Perhaps he’s asleep.</p><p>Just as he turns to leave, there’s a rustle of fabric and a quiet voice calling him. “Don’t leave me, Akaashi.”</p><p>Keiji turns back. Bokuto’s head is just poking out above the top of the duvet, beady owl eyes watching Keiji’s every move. There’s a stool nearby to the bed that Keiji sits down on. “I won’t,” he promises. “Try some tea, Bokuto-san?”</p><p>Bokuto shakes his head, child-like. Above his bed, a chime decorated with jewels twists and turns, reversing its motion every few seconds. </p><p>“Oikawa’s trying to find my castle,” Bokuto admits after a few minutes of silence. His hand reaches out, and Keiji passes him the tea. </p><p>Ah, the Witch of the Waste. “Kozume and I saw their henchman down at the port,” Keiji tells Bokuto. </p><p>Bokuto takes a long sip of the tea, still huddled under the covers. “The truth is,” he says despondently. “I’m a really big coward.” Keiji, who has seen Bokuto scream at cockroaches, wonders if this is supposed to be a surprise. “Half the junk in this castle is just sorcery to keep them away, so they don’t find me. I’m really scared, ‘kaashi.”</p><p>“Why are they after you?” Keiji asks, trying to slot the puzzle pieces together in his mind.</p><p>“They seemed interesting,” Bokuto admits. “So I approached them. But they were really scary and intimidating, so I ran away.”</p><p>Keiji sighs. That answers nothing.</p><p>Bokuto continues his whining. “And now the king wants me to go and report to him, and I hate reporting to the king.”</p><p>“I think it would help if you used less alises,” Keiji says dryly. “Then you’d only have to report to him once.”</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Bokuto scrunches up his nose. “At least this way I can be free. Hey, cuddle?” He lifts up a corner of his duvet, patting the sheets. Keiji can’t refuse.</p><p>He takes the empty teacup from Bokuto’s hands, setting it aside before gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed. The mattress is soft, and he sinks into it easily. A tug from one of Bokuto’s hands has him flopping back into the bed. Bokuto shuffles closer, nestling into Keiji’s shoulder and wrapping the duvet securely around them both. “Much better.”</p><p>Keiji relaxes into the mattress and Bokuto’s arm. It’s comfortable, and far less awkward than he’d expected. Bokuto’s developed a habit of randomly hugging Keiji whenever he can now, dragging him into his arms without warning. Things like this are… familiar. “Can you refuse the invitation?”</p><p>Bokuto sinks further into the bed, only his pointed eyebrows remaining above. His words are muffled by Keiji’s shoulder. “Nope…”</p><p>“Then I guess you have to go,” Keiji points out.</p><p>“But <em> Akaashi… </em>”</p><p>If Keiji were younger and more idealistic, he might suggest Bokuto going to tell the king where he can stick it, and to end this damn war. But he knows that kings don’t have the best interests of their people in mind, and that if he told Bokuto to do it, he would.</p><p>And Keiji’s read enough legal documents to know that telling the king you’re going to break your sorcerer’s oath and also to fuck off, will probably get you arrested.</p><p>“You don’t know what they’re like,” Bokuto whines. “They’re all mean and old and stuck-up.”</p><p>“How terrible to be old,” Keiji says dead-pan.</p><p>Bokuto doesn’t hear him, suddenly rocketing up from the bed and sending several things flying. It leaves a cold space at Keiji’s back. “I know!” he says. “Hey, hey, hey! I have an idea!” </p><p>And Keiji just knows looking at that bright grin and those wild eyes, that he’s going to have to listen to another one of Bokuto’s harebrained schemes and attempt to make it reasonable and executable.</p><p>Because there’s absolutely no way he can just say <em> no </em> to Bokuto when he’s looking at him like that, hair sleep-mussed and messy but still so beautiful and bright.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Which is, of course, how Keiji finds himself days later facing off against Master Ushijima, desperately trying to keep to his role as Bokuto’s father.</p><p><em> Of all things </em> , Keiji thinks dryly, <em> why did it have to be this I agreed to? </em></p><p>He’d barely been at the palace for ten minutes before encountering Oikawa, the Witch of the Waste offering some very barbed words about Bokuto that had Keiji bristling in indignance, as well as purporting to be unable to break Keiji’s curse. But Keiji’d had his payback later, when he’d got the chance to watch Oikawa drag themselves up those endless steps in that ridiculous blue velvet cape and suit.</p><p>No magic inside the wall bounds, the guards had told them, as Oikawa’s blobmen had dissolved into nothing, and the Witch had stared at the steps with an aghast expression.</p><p>“These clothes aren’t made for climbing in,” they’d said, horrified. “And I only just curled my hair!”</p><p>Keiji had huffed, already halfway up the stairs. “Rules are rules.” <em> Serves them right. </em></p><p>The universe had it’s payback a few minutes later, when the old-dog-that-Keiji-was-sure-was-Bokuto had whined and demanded to be carried up.</p><p>It all makes sense now, Keiji thinks, glaring at the dog seated next to Ushijima’s feet. Of course Bokuto - vain Bokuto who’d rather die than take on an ugly form, and tie himself down to the ground - wouldn’t take on the form of an old dog. But then that begged the question where Bokuto <em> was </em>?</p><p>Either way, he’d carried the dog upstairs. The sense of petty satisfaction he’d gained when he looked down and saw Oikawa, hair slick with sweat and make-up running, collapsed three steps from the top was incredible. Who ever said pettiness couldn’t be an excellent motivator?</p><p>“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” someone says, bringing Keiji’s attention back to reality. The room they’re in is a giant orangery, filled to the brim with plants and greenery. There’s a trickling fountain across from Keiji, filled with crystal clear water. If he strains, he can make out the sound of birds. </p><p>A man sits in his wheelchair a few metres away. He’s dressed in a fine suit, deep purple with jewels along the lapels. His face is severe and imposing. “Please,” he says, gesturing towards the chair opposite him. “I’m sure you’re tired. Have a seat.”</p><p>There’s a dangerous aura of power around him, a calm sense of authority that makes Keiji cautious. For all his politeness, this is a dangerous man.</p><p>“Yes,” he responds, and takes the seat. After the exhausting trek up all those steps, it’s a relief to sit down and feel his bones sigh and creak. The ache in his muscles promises he’ll be in pain for the next several days.</p><p>“I am Master Ushijima, His Majesty’s wizard,” the man introduces himself. The dog by his feet gives a single wag of his tail, and Keiji glares at it. Ushijima follows his eyes. “This is my dog, Tsukki. He does errands for me. I asked him to escort you.”</p><p>Definitely not Bokuto in disguise then. Keiji’s rather embarrassed he even considered the notion. Damn dog. Tsukki rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Bokuto won’t be joining us then, I take it?” Ushijima’s voice is level, Keiji notes. He doesn’t sound mad, or even resigned. It’s as if he had seen this coming.</p><p>Keiji offers a small bow of politeness. “He sends his father to make his excuses instead.” Just hearing those words come out of his mouth makes Keiji’s skin crawl for some reason. “However, I’m sure he’d be entirely useless to His Majesty nonetheless.”</p><p>It’s a lie, and Keiji is sure it must show on his face. It couldn’t be more obvious that Bokuto hates the war and wants no part in it.</p><p>Ushijima doesn’t notice, however. “What a shame. He was my last apprentice. A student of such marvelous gifts. I rejoiced in finding a worthy heir to my title.” Keiji struggles to imagine Bokuto in Ushijima’s position: dressed in a tidy suit, surrounded on all sides by servants and assistants. The Head Wizard of the country, in a position of authority that everyone reports to and relies on. No, he decides, it doesn’t suit him one bit.</p><p>Ushijima’s voice changes tone. “Then a demon stole his heart, and he abandoned me.”</p><p>Keiji’s own heart stutters in his chest. <em> His heart? </em>Bokuto didn’t have a heart? Had sold it off to a demon, in return for what? Ushijima continues. “He turned his magic to purely selfish uses. I’m sure you will agree, sir, that he is dangerous.”</p><p><em> Bokuto? Dangerous? </em>“What do you mean?” Keiji asks, trying to keep his voice even. His fingers grip at the fabric of his trousers.</p><p>“His power is far too great for someone with no heart,” Ushijima says plainly. “If he continues to follow this path, he’ll end up like the Witch of the Waste.”</p><p>“What about the Witch of the Waste?”</p><p>Ushijima beckons, and a servant appears out of the foliage, wheeling a small cart. A form decked out in shimmering blue fabric far too big for it sits upon the cart, and it’s only when the cart comes to a stop beside him is it that Keiji realises that it’s <em> Oikawa. </em></p><p>“What did you do to them?” Keiji asks, dropping to his knees. Oikawa’s face is just visible beneath the brim of his slumped-forward beret. Gone is the youthful and smooth skin of before, that strikingly beautiful face. They’re old now like Keiji, skin shrivelled and pruned. There’s remnants of their former beauty, grey hair still perfectly curled and eyes still a beautiful hazelnut.</p><p>“I just restored them to their real age,” Ushijima tells him, looking disdainfully down on Oikawa’s shrivelled form. “They were a magnificent witch, once upon a time. But a deal with a demon consumed their body and soul long ago. This is what remains.”</p><p>“How cruel,” Keiji whispers under his breath. One of Oikawa’s wrinkled hands reaches out to grasp his own. <em> Is this what will happen to Bokuto-san? That he’ll slowly lose himself and descend into a dark spiral like Oikawa did, until eventually it all catches up to him? </em></p><p>
  <em> Is there still time to stop it before it’s too late? </em>
</p><p>Ushijima continues. <em> “ </em>Our kingdom can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to disreputable wizards and witches. If Bokuto comes here to serve the kingdom, I will teach him how to break free of the demon. If not, I will strip him of his powers like I did to Oikawa.”</p><p>An ultimatum. Keiji realises now why Bokuto refused to come, why he did his best to stay far away from this web of lies and trickery.  </p><p>They didn’t have his best interests in mind, nor the best interest of the people. It was all about how they could exploit others for their own gain, and Bokuto wanted no part in it. Keiji wants him to have no part in it too, doesn’t want to see his happiness and youthfulness squandered and destroyed by war.</p><p>Keiji gets to his feet. “I see now why Koutarou didn’t want to come,” he says, a cold edge to his voice. “Forcing aged guests to climb endless stairs, dragging them into strange rooms. It’s all a trap. How despicable. You call Bokuto-san heartless, yet you behave like this?</p><p>“Yes,” he continues, and with every word he speaks he can feel himself getting lighter, like a weight is lifting off him. He’s standing taller, spine straight, as he speaks straight from the heart. “Bokuto-san can be selfish, cowardly, and unpredictable. But he’s a good person, he only wants to be free. He’s not a monster, and he won’t turn into one because despite what you believe he’s got a good heart. He can battle the demon on his own, and I will do my best to support him and help him shine because I believe in him.”</p><p>Ushijima watches him carefully with a glint in his eye. “You are in love with Bokuto,” he says once Keiji has finished. </p><p>Keiji freezes, and everything comes rushing back. The weight slams back into him like a sledgehammer, and he instinctively feels his spine curl up once more. Clawed hands grasp at his coat. “Bokuto,” Oikawa mutters, brown eyes clouded with confusion. “He’s here? He’s coming?” Keiji tries to push them off, but it doesn’t work. “I want Bokuto’s heart,” Oikawa wails pitifully. “Let me have it, let me have it!”</p><p>Overhead, a small craft flies low as Keiji tries to push Oikawa’s hands off him. “Bokuto-san won’t be coming,” he says firmly.</p><p>“On the contrary,” Ushijima says with what can only be described as a smug smile. “He will most certainly come, because I have found his weakness.” There’s no mistaking the satisfaction in his voice now, and Keiji’s brain kicks into overdrive screaming <em> you’ve got to get away, you’ve got to escape, you can’t let them catch Bokuto, you can’t let him come here. </em></p><p>His finger automatically runs over the ruby-set gold ring on his finger, feeling the bumps and twists in it.</p><p>Bokuto had given him the ring just as he was about to set out for the castle, spontaneously hugging him from behind and taking Keiji’s hand in his. Gently, he’d slipped it onto Keiji’s finger - his ring finger. “This ring will make sure you return safe,” he’d said, voice in Keiji’s ear. “So stay safe, okay? Promise? I won’t be far behind you in disguise, don’t worry.”</p><p>That assurance is all Keiji has to go off now.</p><p>The sputtering of an engine fills the air as the small ship lands in the garden outside the orangery, and an imposing man in military finery strides in. Keiji’s mind is too busy overthinking every possible way this situation could go wrong to do anything but half-heartedly follow the conversation and bow when the man - the king - turns his attention on him.</p><p>What does get his attention, however, is when a second man walks in. He’s identical to the first one, down to the curly black hair and double mole above the eyelid. </p><p>Two of them? Keiji looks between the man next to him and the one now speaking to Suliman with confusion. What’s going on?</p><p>It’s only when the first king gives him an exaggerated wink does it click with Keiji. “Hey, ‘kaashi,” Bokuto says quietly while Ushijima talks to the real king.</p><p>“Bokuto-san!” Keiji gasps, and then his eyes slide towards Ushijima. The real king is leaving now, and Ushijima’s unreadable eyes settle on Bokuto. </p><p>“It’s been a while, Bokuto,” Ushijima says.</p><p>Bokuto lets out a booming laugh, forgoing his cover. “It has, it has! You’re looking well, Ushiwaka.”</p><p>“I saw right through you.”</p><p>“You always do!” Bokuto sounds cheerful. Before Akaashi’s eyes, his face starts to change. Like clay being moulded, the skin ripples and distorts and the eyes widen until Bokuto’s ever-so-familiar face is back. The curly black hair straightens and spikes up, fading black to white from the roots outwards to the tips. “Now if you don’t mind me,” Bokuto says, back to his real appearance. “I really have to go. I kept my oath, see! I really did! And I don’t want to fight you, so let me take my father, yeah?” His arm is tight around Keiji’s shoulders.</p><p>“I can’t let you do that.”</p><p>Before this, Keiji had not paid much attention to the staff in Ushijima’s hands, but his eyes zero in on it as Ushijima bangs it against the floor. Just once, and then the floor beneath their feet starts to disappear into a void of space.</p><p>Water comes rushing towards them, a tsunami that rushes over their faces, but Keiji doesn’t feel wet. He can still breathe even as they’re submerged underwater. Almost as quickly as it came, the water disappears and suddenly they’re floating. Sprawling countryside lies below them, cold wind whips at their hair and clothes. Clouds surround them on all sides like wisps of cotton candy. Bokuto’s grip tightens on him. “Don’t look down, ‘kaashi,” he says. “It’s scary.”</p><p>“I’m not scared,” Keiji says, but he doesn’t look down anyway. He trusts that Bokuto has a reason for telling him not to. </p><p>Ushijima’s expression is dark as he looks at the two of them, and at Oikawa dangling down from Keiji’s ankle. “I’ll show your father exactly the type of man you are,” he says, spitting the word ‘father’ out disdainfully.</p><p>The sky darkens around them, light blue bleeding into vibrant orange into dark navy as the sun sets in the distance. There’s a bright flare of light from above that has Keiji shielding his eyes. Then another, and another.</p><p>The lights come closer, whipping around them and exploding into shards of rainbow light. Keiji flinches, but keeps his eyes open. Oikawa whines and tries to crawl further up Keiji’s leg. <em> What are these? </em> Keiji thinks as the lights start to circle around them. <em> Stars? Ghosts? </em></p><p>A haunting song fills the air and the lights move around them faster and faster and faster. Through the blur of brightness, Keiji thinks he sees bodies start to form on them. Transparent, ghost-like forms dancing in a ring around them.<em> They look like children </em>, Keiji realises. Long shadows from the star-children grow longer and darker as the song picks up pace and volume.</p><p>It’s terrifying. It’s horrifying. It’s like nothing Keiji’s ever seen before. Bokuto doesn’t even look fazed. </p><p>Bokuto suddenly lets out a pained noise behind him, and Keiji manages to tear his eyes away from the star-children. Feathers are growing from Bokuto’s face, feathers like black ebony and white snow. Something sharp digs into Keiji’s shoulder. <em> Talons, </em>he realises. The feathers start to grow and cover Bokuto’s entire body, military uniform on his shoulders ripping. Arms turn into great feathered wings in a horrifying transformation.</p><p>He lets out a snarl, and Keiji struggles to hold him back from launching towards Ushijima. Those normally bright golden eyes are vicious, filled with feral anger. “Don’t, Bokuto-san. It’s a trap!” Bokuto still struggles against his grip, but Keiji doesn’t relent. </p><p>Then with a powerful flap of his wings, Bokuto sends them flying upwards just in time to dodge Ushijima’s staff launching at them. Up and up they go, and Keiji can’t see anything, glasses long knocked off his nose from the wind. All of a sudden, they smash through something, and like glass shattering the illusion breaks.</p><p>They’re back in the castle, in the garden just outside the orangery, and there’s a Bokuto-sized hole in the orangery roof.</p><p>Chancing a look at Bokuto, Keiji’s relieved to see he’s back to normal again. With gentle hands, Bokuto sets him down on the small ship he’d flown in on. Oikawa still clings to his leg, and with a jump impressive for his age, Tsukki slips on just as they take off.</p><p>“You fly,” Bokuto tells Keiji. “I don’t have a license.”</p><p>
  <em> And you think I do? </em>
</p><p>Keiji complies nonetheless. Bokuto looks back at Oikawa and Tsukki huddling at the end of the ship and sighs despondently. “Akaashi, did you really have to bring the whole gang along? I like it when it’s just us.” The words bring a blush to Keiji’s cheeks, one that he hopes he can pass off as wind chill.</p><p>There are hundreds of ships in eager pursuit of them. Bokuto watches them with a confident smile. “I can take them,” he says. Tsukki lets out a yip, and Keiji shoots him a glare. <em> Damn dog. Aren’t you just Ushijima’s spy? </em>But it’s rather too late now to chuck both Oikawa and the dog off, so they’ll just have to stay put.</p><p>“Be careful,” Keiji warns Bokuto.</p><p>The smile Bokuto shoots him is blinding. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this! You just head straight for the castle.”</p><p>Keiji looks at the view ahead of them. Rooftops for miles ahead, and then hundreds of identical hills in the distance. “Bokuto-san. Which way?”</p><p>“Eh?” Bokuto looks between Keiji and the view. “Oh, use the ring!”</p><p>The ring?</p><p>Bokuto gestures at it. “Just summon Kuroo with your heart, and he’ll reply. You’ll be fine, I know it!”</p><p>“Why even send me if you’re going to come yourself?” Keiji asks exasperatedly. </p><p>“Huh?” Bokuto whines. “But Akaashi! I couldn’t have! I only had the courage to come because you were by my side.” He crouches down next to Keiji, staring at him with imploring eyes. “You really saved my ass back there, Akaashi. I was in danger.”</p><p>“Try putting yourself in less dangerous situations, please.”</p><p>“No promises! Well, I’ll catch you back there later!”</p><p>“Bokuto-san!”</p><p>Keiji doesn’t even get to wish him a safe journey home before he’s gone.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s nightfall by the time they reach Keiji’s hometown. “Not far now,” he calls back. Tsukki gives a weak cough, and Keiji scowls. “I still don’t trust you. You’d better not hurt Bokuto-san.” Tsukki wheezes again, and if Keiji didn’t know better he’d say the dog sounded hurt.</p><p>Rain pours down on them, and Keiji keeps flying.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>To say they get home safely would be a lie, because Keiji crash-lands the ship into the castle, but they make it all in one piece.</p><p>He’s exhausted by the time they’ve all settled down for the night. It’s been an exciting day, and he’s worn out. There’s rubble all around the living room still, and holes to be patched in the wall, but those can wait. All Keiji wants is to sleep for ten years.</p><p>But he can’t. Bokuto isn’t back yet.</p><p>Kenma had huffed and puffed at the mess they’d made, and then huffed and puffed even more upon seeing Oikawa and the dog, but there had been relief in his eyes. “Thought you might have died on something,” he’d muttered, and Keiji had allowed a small smile.</p><p>They’ve all gone to sleep now, and Keiji is just drifting off when he hears the sound of Kuroo’s voice piercing through his tiredness. He manages to force his eyes open, and sees a dark shadow disappearing upstairs. On the floor, there’s bloody footprints in the shape of talons, and feathers shed everywhere.</p><p>He’s injured. <em> Bokuto-san! </em></p><p>Pulling shoes and socks on, Keiji follows the trail of blood upstairs and to Bokuto’s door. He knocks gently once, but gets no reply. “Bokuto-san?”</p><p>The door creaks open easily under his touch. Gone is the familiar bedroom full of trinkets and oddities, with that enormous bed right in the centre. Instead, it’s somehow turned into a dark burrow. The walls of the burrow are rough and round, like something had tunnelled through it, and Bokuto’s trinkets coat all the surfaces. It’s cold and dark. The light from Keiji’s candle only stretches so far, and everything else after that disappears into endless darkness.</p><p>“Bokuto-san?” he calls again, voice concerned. </p><p>He ventures on through the dark tunnel. Once, he comes across a fork, and by some sort of magic he knows exactly which one to choose.</p><p>Bokuto’s laboured breathing reaches him before the candlelight does, and he rushes forward. Bokuto’s curled on his side, his huge form taking up the entire breadth of the tunnel. The feathers on his flank rise and fall with every heavy breath. Keiji falls to his knees beside him. “Bokuto-san, are you okay?” Worried hands hover just above Bokuto, careful not to touch and hurt him.</p><p>The voice that comes from the creature sounds nothing like Bokuto. It’s raspy and laced with bitterness. “Leave me alone.”</p><p>“I want to help you,” Keiji says. He pauses, then continues. “I want to help break the curse that you’re under.”</p><p>The laugh that follows is harsh and grating. “You can’t even break your own curse.”</p><p>It hurts to hear, but Bokuto’s clearly not in his right mind and lashing out. Keiji persists. “I want to help you,” he repeats. “Because I love you.”</p><p>And it’s true, he does.</p><p>Ushijima had been right, and Keiji is surprised he’d never realised it before himself. He, boring old Akaashi Keiji, was in love with the wizard Bokuto. So much so that it was all he could think about sometimes. </p><p>When he was reordering the books in the library, thinking about which ones Bokuto would enjoy. </p><p>When he was organising the bathroom supplies, and the smell of soap in his nostrils made him remember Bokuto’s own smell, and how it grew stronger when Bokuto pressed himself closer to him.</p><p>When they all sat down to eat together, or Bokuto talked excitedly about new spells and potions he’d been learning about.</p><p>When they cuddled together on a sofa, or an armchair, Bokuto resting his head and watching as Keiji wrote page after page.</p><p>So many little moments that Keiji treasured and held close to him. Because he was in love with Bokuto.</p><p>Saying it didn’t feel like some great revelation, but more like an acceptance of what he had already known deep down.</p><p>“It’s too late,” Bokuto says, and he reveals his face for the first time. It’s barely even human anymore, but the eyes are still Bokuto’s. Keiji clings to that, even as Bokuto snarls. “Too late.”</p><p>He stretches and spreads his wings, sending feathers blowing in Keiji’s face. He can’t see, there’s too many of them, and before he knows it Bokuto’s gone, leaving only the empty tunnel ahead, and the cold breeze blowing in.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He wakes the next morning with a start. The pipes are groaning, and there’s the faint sound of running water. Bokuto must be awake. The events of the previous night come back to him. </p><p>Was it real? A dream? It certainly felt real, but Keiji doesn’t remember how he got back to his bed.</p><p>“Oi.” Kuroo gets his attention from the fireplace. “You really need to hurry up breaking mine and Bo’s spell. We’re running out of time.”</p><p>Keiji sits up. “Bokuto-san’s going to turn into a monster, isn’t he?” Memories of that creature from last night fill his mind. It hadn’t looked human. Hadn’t looked nor sounded like Bokuto. <em> Is that what he’ll become? Forever? </em></p><p>“I’m a demon, I can’t answer that,” Kuroo says with a shrug.</p><p>Keiji narrows his eyes at him, remembering something. “Ushijima told me Bokuto-san gave you something very precious. Where is it?”</p><p>“Confidential information.” Kuroo looks smug.</p><p>Keiji sighs. Stubborn wizards and their stubborn demons.</p><p>Looks like saving Bokuto is going to be harder than expected. But the life of the man he loves is worth all this effort, even if without a heart Bokuto can’t love him back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When he next sees Bokuto, it’s as if nothing has happened.</p><p>With Oikawa now living with them, Keiji’s left playing nanny to not just one, but now <em> two </em>overgrown wizards and witches. That said, Oikawa is a lot less effort than Bokuto. They just stare at Kuroo all day and mutter about a pretty fire under their breath. Kenma keeps his distance, still distrustful. He much prefers to hang around with the pumpkin-headed scarecrow, testing out new spells and doing errands.</p><p>Bokuto bounds down the stairs on light feet, spinning to a halt before them all.</p><p>“Welcome home, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, and his heart already feels infinitely lighter from seeing that radiant smile.</p><p>“It’s like a kennels in here,” Kuroo mutters angrily from the fire. “Always bringing home strays!”</p><p>“Why’d you let them in the castle?” Bokuto asks, peering curiously at Oikawa’s wrinkled face.</p><p>“They flew in with Akaashi. What was I supposed to do, just leave him out in the cold?”</p><p>Bokuto’s full-bellied laugh fills in the room. “Always so dramatic, our Akaashi!” Keiji raises an eyebrow. <em> Me, the dramatic one? </em> Bokuto catches sight of the scarecrow. “Oh! You must be Mr Pumpkin Head!”</p><p>The scarecrow bounces up and down excitedly. Bokuto frowns, squinting at it. “That’s a nasty spell you’re under. Gosh, Akaashi, you really know how to pick them don’t you? We’ve got a family of ragtags here!”</p><p>Keiji coughs into his porridge. The idea of having a family with Bokuto makes him happier than it should.</p><p>Bokuto turns back to them with a grin, arms spread wide. “Today is a very big day!” he says. “Guess why!”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“You have to guess properly! Go on, guess!”</p><p>“You’re dyeing your hair again?” Keiji suggests.</p><p>“Nope!” Bokuto announces with far too much enthusiasm. “It’s because we’re m-”</p><p>“We’re moving,” Kuroo interrupts.</p><p>Bokuto squawks. “Don’t you interrupt me! C’mon, bro!”</p><p>“Oh, thank god,” Kenma groans. “It’s so boring out here in the middle of nowhere.”</p><p><em> Moving? </em> Keiji wonders. <em> What on Earth? </em></p><p>The actual process of moving is nothing like he expects. It’s possibly one of the most dramatic and impressive feats of magic Keiji’s ever seen: from the giant chalk circles and runes to the colourful explosion of Kuroo into a roaring flame of pink and blue. The whole castle groans around them. It sounds like it’s about to fall apart any second. </p><p>Then the rooms start to stretch and change, extra doors and walls and decorations bending themselves out of thin air. By the time Bokuto is done, and Kuroo is safely back in his fireplace, it looks like an entirely different house.</p><p>Keiji can’t help but wonder, then, why Bokuto simply doesn’t organise his own castle if he can do all this.</p><p>(The answer is, of course, that he doesn’t want to. “Organising is boring, Akaashi,” Bokuto had moaned to him once. “Why even bother, when I’ll mess it up in a few days time?”)</p><p>A big and warm hand grabs his. “Come and see it all,” Bokuto says. He’s radiating happiness, and it’s infectious. “Look at the house I made. All for us and our family!”</p><p>
  <em> Us and our family. </em>
</p><p>“I added a room for you too!” Bokuto proclaims after he’s shown Keiji the view outside the window - looking straight into his hometown. It makes Keiji’s heart pound. Bokuto leads him over to a door and shoves it open with a flourish.</p><p>Keiji’s jaw drops, and he lets go of Bokuto’s hand by accident. “This is…”</p><p>It’s his old room. The one above the government offices that he’d rented. It had been small and a bit dingy, but it had been his and he’s been secretly missing it this whole time.</p><p>There’s already a fire crackling in the grate, and the bed is bigger and neatly made with soft sheets. Bokuto had brought his bookshelf and armchair along too. The shelves are packed full with well-loved books and novels of all sorts.</p><p>But the thing that catches his eye the most is the desk. It’s his writing desk. There are stacks of paper set on it, and fresh quills and ink pots. <em> All for me. </em> He doesn’t know how to react.</p><p>Whirling around to face Bokuto, he sees the wizard grinning at him. “Do you like it?”</p><p>There aren’t words to express how perfect it is. Keiji settles for a smile. “I like it.”</p><p>Bokuto beams. “I’ve got one last surprise for you!” He grabs Keiji’s hand again and drags him over to the door. “I added a new exit. Come see.”</p><p>With the dial turned to green, Bokuto pulls open the door. The sweet scent of flowers fills the air, and sunlight filters in. “Come on,” Bokuto says.</p><p>Outside lies the most beautiful place Keiji has ever seen. It’s like something out of a painting, or a fantasy world. A hillscape covered in flowers lies before his eyes, colourful patches of peonies and roses and hundreds of other flowers he can’t name as far as the eye can see. There’s snow-tipped mountains in the distance, picturesque against the blue sky. Small lakes dot the hillside, with water so clear and still that the sky is reflected in it. Low clouds drift across the surface of the water.</p><p>“It’s beautiful,” Keiji says. “Did you make it with your magic?”</p><p>Bokuto helps him over a small stream. “Just a little. A tiny bit, I promise! I wanted to make the flowers bloom.”</p><p>Keiji can’t take his eyes off it. He doesn’t even notice Bokuto watching him from the side with soft eyes.</p><p>There’s a strange feeling in his chest, like his heart is about to burst with happiness. It flutters in his chest like a bird. <em> How mysterious, </em> he thinks. <em> I almost feel as if I’ve been here before. Perhaps in my dreams… </em></p><p>“One last surprise!” Bokuto promises, tugging gently on Keiji’s hand. He leads him over a ridge, and then points down into the valley. “Look there!”</p><p>A small house sits next to a lake. On the other side of it, the hillside drops down steeply to reveal a full view of the mountains that surround them. It’s a quaint house, with stone walls and a slate roof, and a water wheel churning down the side of it.</p><p>“It’s my favourite hide-out,” Bokuto admits in a stage-whisper, leaning in close to Keiji. “When I was little I spent lots of summers here alone.” Keiji knows Bokuto well enough now to hear the note of sadness, the quiet admittance of his lonely childhood, and silently strengthens his resolve to never let Bokuto feel lonely again. Bokuto continues. “My uncle was a wizard too, so he left it to me as a private study. Pretty cool, right?”</p><p>“Indeed,” Keiji says.</p><p>Bokuto tugs Keiji. “Come and see it.”</p><p>Keiji resists his pull, and Bokuto looks surprised as his hand falls from his. “What’s wrong, Akaashi?”</p><p>“You’re not going to disappear, are you, Bokuto-san?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>He keeps his voice steady. “If I go into that house, you’re not going to suddenly run off in some misguided attempt to sacrifice yourself and keep us all safe?”</p><p>Bokuto looks heartbroken. “Akaashi… no… I just want you - and the others too, our little family! - to be happy and safe.” He gives a little twirl, arms wide. “You like writing, right? I know you’re incredible at it. You could write so many novels here. No one would disturb you, not even me!”</p><p>“You’re not a disturbance,” Keiji says fondly.</p><p>“Even when I’m knocking your inkpot all over your paper?”</p><p>“Perhaps then.”</p><p>The two of them laugh, and Bokuto reaches forward to grab both of Keiji’s hands with his again. Keiji looks down at their joined hands. “Promise you’ll let me stay and help you,” he says. “I know I’m boring, and plain, and normal, and you’re <em> you </em>but-”</p><p>“Akaashi!” Bokuto says, horrified. “Akaashi, you’re not boring! You’re not normal! You’re not plain either, you’re beautiful!”</p><p>It almost sounds believable, coming from Bokuto’s mouth. Keiji thought that at his age he’d have given up hope, but it seems like he still has one more thing to lose.</p><p>On their way back, battle airships come soaring over them. They look out of place in all this unspoiled beauty, hulking metal machines of death and violence, on their way to burn cities and people. “Murderers,” Bokuto spits at them. “All of them are murderers.” He puts a hand on Keiji’s waist and squeezes it tightly.</p><p>Then he gets that glint in his eye that spells trouble, and Keiji suddenly sees the airship in front of them start to fail. “It’s going to crash,” he says with surprise. He turns to Bokuto. “Did you do that?”</p><p>Bokuto looks guilty. “I only tinkered with it a little bit.” Keiji catches a glimpse of the hand hidden behind his back. It’s curled into a claw shape, sharp talons topping his fingers. All down his arm, little feathers poke out from under the skin. <em> Not good. It’s getting worse and worse.  </em></p><p>Ahead of them, the airship starts to turn. Bokuto lets out a strained laugh. “Whoops, guess it saw us! Run, Akaashi!”</p><p>He doesn’t give Keiji time to move before grabbing him around the waist once more and bolting. Keiji’s legs can hardly keep up with the speed. “Move those legs!” Bokuto hoots in his ear, jubilant. Then suddenly Keiji’s feet are lifting off the ground as Bokuto, now half-transformed, flaps his wings and propels them upwards.</p><p>If it weren’t for the feeling of feathered hands holding his and the flap of wings, Keiji would find the entire situation oddly reminiscent of their first meeting. Bokuto, ever cheerful in the face of danger, telling him to move his feet just like running while they soar through the air.</p><p>The door back to the castle quickly approaches as they soar above a lake, so close that Keiji’s feet can almost skim the surface. <em> There’s no way I can get into that from the air, </em> Keiji thinks frantically. <em> Is Bokuto-san going to fling me in? What if he aims wrong and misses? </em></p><p>“Are you ready?” Bokuto asks, and Keiji thinks <em> no. </em></p><p>He lets go, and Keiji falls. He tumbles in through the doorway, back into the safety of the castle.</p><p>Bokuto does not follow him in.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“You’re in love,” Oikawa tells him disdainfully that night as he settles down for bed. “You’ve got that stupid face on that only people in love have.”</p><p>
  <em> I do? </em>
</p><p>Keiji looks at himself in the mirror nearby. He looks exactly the same as he always does, in his opinion. Plain, boring, normal. Does he look like a man in love? Can Bokuto tell? It brings a slight blush to his cheeks.</p><p>Even despite his best assurances that Bokuto can look after himself, he still struggles to get to sleep that night. Outside, air raid sirens blare.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Konoha’s visit comes as a surprise. How he found them, Keiji will likely never know, but as his closest friend flings himself into his arms he can’t help but send a thanks up.</p><p>“Akaashi!” Konoha says. “Fuck, I’ve missed you so much.”</p><p>Keiji relishes in the feeling of Konoha’s arms tight around him, in the familiar smell of chemicals that drifts up from his shirt. “I missed you too.”</p><p>He doesn’t stay for long, apparently there's a car waiting for him out on the main road. “I just wanted to see you again,” Konoha says. “See how you’re doing. Oh, I brought some headache medication for you.” He places a small bag down on the dining table.</p><p>Giving him a small smile, Keiji thanks him. “My headaches have been a lot better recently, truthly,” he says.</p><p>“It’s because you’re not spending twenty hours a day squinting at tiny typed words,” Konoha says with a shove. “Shit, I really have to run. Keep in contact, okay Akaashi?”</p><p>“I’ll walk you out,” Keiji says, eager to take advantage of every second. He holds the door open for Konoha. “You said your car was waiting?”</p><p>“Ah, yeah. I met this woman recently…”</p><p>The door shuts behind them, cutting the voices off and leaving Oikawa all alone.</p><p>Keiji doesn’t know exactly what happens after that. When he tries to pry the story out of Bokuto later, he gets some jumbled nonsense about peeping bugs and Oikawa’s magpie tendencies. </p><p>The specifics of what happens aren’t important, however. All that matters is that when Keiji hears Oikawa’s words, spoken through the shroud of scented smoke that surrounds him, his blood runs cold. </p><p>“I wouldn’t open that window now,” he says, puffing gently on the cigar. Kenma, almost at the window already, preparing to air the room, doesn’t hear him. “In the state he’s in, Kuroo won’t be able to keep them out.”</p><p>Keiji looks at the fireplace, at the faint embers that are all that’s visible of Kuroo, and then towards the window again. <em> Keep who out? Is something wrong with Kuroo-san? If there is, and Kenma opens that window, then it means- </em></p><p>“Don’t open it!” Keiji calls, but it’s too late. The window is already unlatched.</p><p>Explosions wrack the city, shaking the castle and sending dust falling from the ceiling. Outside the window, bombs drop and fires start to blaze. Kenma takes one look at it and shuts the window again. “Hm.”</p><p>Another shake hits the house, and Keiji almost topples over. <em> The city, everyone outside! They’d been evacuating in the droves earlier today, but those still remaining must be in danger. Konoha could be out there still. </em>“I’ll check out the front,” he says.</p><p>A wave of heat hits him as he opens the front door. The whole street is ablaze, buildings destroyed and fierce fires raging. Further down the street, Keiji can just make out shadows silhouetted against the flames - families armed with suitcases hurriedly fleeing to safety.</p><p>He feels a chill down his spine despite the heat. Out of the darkness, Ushijima’s blobmen start to crawl. They’re wearing the clean green military uniforms, but they’re coating in ash and debris. As they get closer, the blobmen start to warp, losing their human shapes. They advance on Keiji, paying no attention to the fleeing and injured civilians all around them.</p><p><em> How disgusting, </em> Keiji thinks. <em> Soldiers and magic to spare, and they use it on tracking down a rogue wizard rather than helping those suffering around them. How dare they. </em></p><p>But there’s no time. He can only flee back to the castle, running through the lower floors of the government offices. Behind him, there’s crashing sounds that indicate the blobmen are following, scrambling over each other in a mad rush to catch him.</p><p>He skids into the courtyard. The sky is red with ash and smoke above, an idyllic town long-turned into a battlefield. A piercing whistle catches his attention, and Keiji looks up just in time to see bombs fall down from an airship directly above. </p><p>Closer and closer they come, and Keiji knows it’s going to be a direct hit.</p><p>There’s no way he can run, no way he can make it to the castle door in time before they hit.</p><p>This is it.</p><p>There’s nowhere left to run, not even upwards. No one to save him this time.</p><p><em> Bokuto-san, </em> he thinks. It’s strange, how when he’s on the brink of death all he can think of is how he promised Bokuto he’d be there to help, and stay by his side. <em> I didn’t mean to break our promise. </em></p><p>As the bomb gets closer and closer, Keiji suddenly notices something clinging on to it. White and black feathers stark against the black metal. “Bokuto-san!” he calls, starting forwards.</p><p>The bombs hit all around them. Rubble explodes, shattering everywhere, and Keiji feels like his skin is about to burn off. There’s ringing in his ears that sounds like a child crying.</p><p>Everything becomes fire. The whole city is blitzed, leaving nothing standing in its wake.</p><p>Keiji feels rocks and glass hit against his arms and body, hears the wooden beam above his head creak dangerously.</p><p>But the courtyard doesn’t blow.</p><p>When the smoke and ash clears slightly, Keiji sees. Bokuto, in the middle of the courtyard, atop the unexploded bomb. He’d cushioned its landing carefully.</p><p>Keiji doesn’t think, just runs. “Bokuto-san!” Bokuto’s the one to pull him into a tight hug when he gets close enough, nose buried in Keiji’s hair. His wings wrap protectively around Keiji, feathers dusting his shoulders.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says regretfully. “There were just so many of them tonight, more than I could count.” His amber eyes are scanning Keiji carefully for injuries.</p><p>“I’m glad you’re safe,” Keiji says, pulling him in again for a hug. Across the courtyard, the blobmen are starting to pull themselves from the rubble. This is no time for sentimentality.</p><p>Just Bokuto’s presence inspires hope in all of them and reestablishes a sense of normalcy. He’s only just back inside the castle when he’s cajoling Kuroo up to full strength again. “Oikawa fed me something nasty,” Kuroo complains, still sulking. </p><p>Bokuto laughs. “Like you’ve never eaten nasty stuff yourself before.”</p><p>“That’s different and you know it!”</p><p>With one last laugh, Bokuto turns back to Keiji and his face becomes serious once more. He’s still half-transformed into his bird form, feathers coating his neck and body. Two hands settle gently on Keiji’s shoulder. “Stay here, Akaashi. Kuroo will keep you safe.”</p><p>“I can protect myself perfectly fine, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says.</p><p>“I know you can. I’ll be back as soon as I can, I need to go and deal with things.”</p><p>Bokuto makes to leave, and Keiji reaches out to grab a wrist. “Bokuto-san, wait! Don’t go, please. Let’s just run away.” He knows how this is going to end, and he doesn’t want to see it happen.</p><p>“Another round of bombs is coming,” Bokuto says. “Even Kuroo can’t stop those, and I can’t just stand by any longer and do nothing.”</p><p>“Why not?” Keiji says, almost pleading. “I can’t… I can’t…”</p><p>Bokuto’s hand reaches out, and gently cups Keiji’s face in his palm. He leans his forehead forward to touch Keiji’s, their breaths mingling. “I’m through running away.”</p><p>“Bokuto-san.”</p><p>“I found someone that I want to protect, and so I gotta do everything I can for them.”</p><p>Someone that he wants to protect? <em> Could that mean… </em></p><p>A thumb softly rubs at Keiji’s cheek. Bokuto’s face is so close now, that Keiji can almost see his own shocked expression reflected in Bokuto’s golden eyes. </p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“You.”</p><p>Before Keiji can do something stupid like kiss him or demand they run away to a remote cottage, Bokuto’s gone. Keiji’s hand is left grasping at nothing.</p><p>Bokuto loves him. </p><p>Loves him.</p><p>Bokuto loves him, and Keiji loves him back. </p><p>Like Bokuto, he has something to fight for. Something to motivate him to stay safe and get Bokuto home safely, and he’d do anything to protect it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“I want to make a deal,” he says to Kuroo, kneeling in front of the fireplace. Dust falls from the ceiling, and the ruined remains of the castle creak around them.</p><p>Kenma gasps behind him. “Akaashi, no!”</p><p>Kuroo flickers into existence. He still looks slightly worse for wear, flames more orange than red. “Hm, are you sure about this?”</p><p>“Absolutely,” Keiji says with resolution.</p><p>If he doesn’t do this, Bokuto will die. There is no question about it. The fighting is only getting worse and worse outside, and Bokuto is slowly losing himself. If Kuroo and Bokuto won’t resolve this curse themselves, and end Bokuto’s role in this fighting, Keiji will just do it for them.</p><p>He’s already destroyed the castle, it’s not like he can do much worse than that.</p><p>(Bokuto is definitely not going to be happy when he sees his precious castle, reduced to nothing more than a scrap heap in the mountains, but that’s a problem to worry about when they’re all safe.)</p><p>“It won’t be easy,” Kuroo warns him. “I’m weak, and this wood is damp. I don’t have much power.”</p><p>“‘The best blaze brightest in adversity’,” Keiji quotes. </p><p>Kuroo grumbles, blushing. “Stop trying to butter me up, you old man.”</p><p>“Well?”</p><p>“If you want me to do this,” Kuroo says. “If you want me to move the castle to Bokuto, then I’ll need something of yours.”</p><p>Keiji tilts his head, considering. “Something of mine?” Did he mean something small, like a handkerchief or a watch, or something more? Something that Keiji wasn’t willing to give?</p><p>“I can’t do it alone. Something like, hm… your fingers?”</p><p>Keiji clutches his hand close to his chest. Anything but that. His fingers were so precious to him. They held his entire dream in them. Without them, he wouldn’t be able to write.</p><p>Kuroo sees his reluctance. “Hm, okay. What about-”</p><p>“Does it have to be something physical of mine?” Keiji interrupts. “Like, my throat. Or can it be something abstract, like my voice?”</p><p>“Trust you to ask me,” Kuroo grumbles. “Nobody has ever asked me about the damn legal specifics of a demon deal before.”</p><p>“Better safe than sorry. So?”</p><p>“Abstract things are fine too, I suppose. What do you want to give?”</p><p>“My vision,” Keiji says. “But not all of it, just part of it. Take away my ability to see far away.”</p><p>Kuroo observes him for a few seconds, double-checking that Keiji is certain before he nods. A wave of flame washes over Keiji’s face suddenly. His eyelids burn and itch, and he resists the desire to rub them. As quickly as it comes, it’s gone. When Keiji opens his eyes again, everything further than a few metres away is a blur.</p><p>With a burst of smoke and flame, Kuroo grows and springs up. He hefts the collapsed castle ceiling with his arms, straining and groaning. The rubble shifts around them, scrap metal and houses and planks of wood all falling down into a heap.</p><p>Out of the scrap walks a new castle.</p><p>“Incredible,” Keiji says, voice awed.</p><p>“Just imagine,” Kuroo says from behind him, voice taking on a sleazy tone. “The feats I could perform with your heart!”</p><p><em> You’re too late for that, </em> Keiji thinks. <em> I already gave that away to a wizard. </em></p><p>“Heart?” Oikawa mutters, wrinkled hands scrabbling around at the fireplace. “You have a heart?”</p><p>All of them are so focused on the war ahead that they don’t notice Oikawa’s hand reaching into the depths of Kuroo’s flame until it's too late.</p><p>Without the heart to power Kuroo, the castle comes to a sudden and juddery halt.</p><p>Everything after that is a blur to Keiji. He remembers fighting Oikawa for Bokuto’s heart. He remembers flinging water over Oikawa to stop them burning up, and accidentally putting out Kuroo’s flame in the process. He remembers the castle splintering in two, and then falling backwards down and down amongst the rubble.</p><p>Then it goes dark.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Keiji awakes in a gorge, surrounded on all sides by broken castle parts and scrap metal. It’s pitch-black, and the cliffs of the gorge are so high they block out the moon. Far too high to climb up. Tsukki wheezes beside him, but he barely notices.</p><p>He poured water on Kuroo.</p><p>“What have I done?” he mutters to himself. How could he have been so foolish? So blinded by, what? Possessiveness over Bokuto’s heart, fear for their lives as the castle fell apart, pure adrenaline?</p><p>Whatever it was, he had messed up.</p><p><em> Now is no time for a pity party, </em> he tells himself, and then slaps himself on the cheeks once. Tsukki watches in horror. <em> There’s no time for this. </em></p><p>But what can he do, stuck down here in this gorge miles away from wherever Bokuto probably is?</p><p><em> What if you killed him? </em> The traitorous voice at the back of his head whispers sinister thoughts that are far too loud in the quiet of the gorge. <em> What if it’s all your fault Bokuto-san dies? </em></p><p>No, that can’t be true. He can’t believe it. He refuses to believe it, because a reality in which that was the truth…</p><p>The wheezing of Tsukki catches his attention, and he looks down. On his hand, the ring Bokuto had given him for<em> safe return home </em> is glowing. It trembles slightly on his finger, a narrow beam of blue light shooting out of it and disappearing through a heavy sheet of metal.</p><p>Bokuto!</p><p>Keiji scrambles to his feet. He cuts his hand on a piece of twisted metal, but doesn’t even notice the blood dripping as he hurried over. It’s a huge sheet of iron, clearly one of the walls of the castle. When Keiji peers behind it, he can see a wooden doorframe.</p><p>Moving the metal sheet takes all of his strength, shoving his whole weight against it and heaving. Tsukki watches unhelpfully from the side and wheezes. Keiji’s just about to give up, exhausted and panting, when the sheet finally shifts and falls to the ground with a loud crash.</p><p>
  <em> The castle door. </em>
</p><p>Keiji wastes no time in prying it open. Only darkness waits for him beyond it, an eerie moaning noise coming from within.</p><p>
  <em> Bokuto’s in there. </em>
</p><p>Keiji heads in without hesitation.</p><p>The light from the ring guides him forward.</p><p>His worry only grows with each step. What will he find at the end?</p><p>Bokuto, dead? The ongoing war?</p><p>There’s only one way to find out.</p><p>Eventually, Keiji can make out light up ahead. With his newly ruined vision, he can’t see what it is until he’s almost on top of it.</p><p>It’s a room, with a wooden writing desk in the centre of it. The desk is stacked high with old tomes and papers covered in childish scrawl. A half-drunk cup of tea sits on it, along with a pair of round glasses. Keiji cautious picks them up and perches them on his nose. <em> Much better now </em>. Tsukki scratches at a door on the other side of the room, and Keiji cautiously opens it.</p><p>The night sky above is filled with shooting stars, streaks of light across the dark blazing so brightly. When they reach the horizon, they explode in a shower of rainbow sparks, and noise like breaking glass. It reminds Keiji of the bizarre singing star-children he’d seen in Ushijima’s illusion.</p><p>As the stars soar past, they light up the view. Rolling green hills and lakes with water so clear it reflects the night sky above. Keiji looks back at the tiny cottage behind him, and the water wheel. He knows where he is now. <em> Bokuto’s hide-away. </em></p><p>The real question is <em> when </em>he is.</p><p>A shattering star on the horizon reveals the silhouette of a child. They’re dressed in flamboyant colourful clothes, and the hair upon their head is spiked upwards like an owls. “Bokuto-san!”</p><p>The child stops, and turns to look at the stars descending from above.</p><p>Memories of the star-children and the eerie song echo in Keiji’s mind.</p><p>He knows what comes next.</p><p>
  <em> This is Bokuto’s childhood. </em>
</p><p>There’s not enough time to run all the way to Bokuto before the inevitable happens, but Keiji tries anyway. The grass is dewy underfoot, and Keiji slips more than once, but he keeps on running. A star skims down onto the surface of the lake next to him, descending into the water with a fizzle of rainbow light. It skips along the surface for a second, and Keiji swears he sees the form of a tiny child in that light, gleefully dancing along the water before it’s gone.</p><p>The stars are coming more frequently now, shattering all around Keiji and lighting the darkness in a myriad of colours. A star-child skips through Keiji’s ankles, darting ahead of him in the race towards Bokuto.</p><p>Keiji looks up. Bokuto stands on the crest of the hill ahead, still so far away. Another star - the brightest of them all so far, lighting up the whole night sky - falls, and Bokuto catches it in his palms.</p><p>It blazes and sparks like fire, but Bokuto seems undeterred. He speaks to it with childish glee, excitement written into every muscle of his face.</p><p>Then with both his hands, he lifts it to his mouth and swallows it whole.</p><p>Keiji was right all along. Bokuto was a star.</p><p>The light fades, leaving darkness so thick that Keiji can hardly see what’s happening. Bokuto hunches into himself in pain, hands clutching at his chest. Keiji starts forward, unable to help himself when seeing him in pain.</p><p>From his chest, Bokuto summons a ball of red flame.</p><p>Kuroo.</p><p>At that moment, the thin silver ring around his finger snaps. The illusion breaks, and the ground falls out from under Keiji’s feet.</p><p>No, not yet! It’s too soon, he hasn’t seen it all yet! He hasn’t found the real Bokuto!</p><p>This can’t be it!</p><p>He catches one last glimpse of child Bokuto as he falls, and he calls out. “Bokuto-san! Kuroo-san!”</p><p>Bokuto turns to look, surprise etched onto his features. The flame in his hands shudders and writhes.</p><p>This is his last chance.</p><p>Keiji gathers his breath and yells. “It’s Akaashi! Wait for me, Bokuto-san! I promise I’ll come back to you!”</p><p>As the glasses on his nose fade away, and the world crumbles into darkness, Bokuto and Kuroo start to blur and distort. The darkness has its claws in Keiji now, pulling with irresistible strength, but he’s not done yet. “Wait for me in the future!”</p><p>They’re the last words he gets out before they’re gone, and then he’s properly falling. With the rising in the east and a vast ocean below dotted with islands, he falls.</p><p>There are tears on Keiji’s cheeks. Carefully, he wipes at them with his hands. He just can’t seem to stop crying.</p><p>When they emerge out of the door and back into reality, the first thing Keiji sees is Bokuto. He’s huddled into a bird-like shape, features entirely hidden by feathers.</p><p>Keiji’s heart breathes a sigh of relief to see him alive. “Bokuto-san.” With careful hands, he parts the feathers around Bokuto’s face, exposing those bright gold eyes once more. There are cuts on his face, bright splashes of red on his pale and wan skin. His eyes stare sightlessly forward. He’s so far gone already, and it breaks Keiji’s heart to see. </p><p>“I’m sorry it took me so long to find you again,” Keiji says softly, cupping Bokuto’s face. “You waited all this time for me…”</p><p>All this time, and he never said a thing.</p><p>He carried it with him secretly all this time, never letting on.</p><p>Stupid, foolish man. Keiji is so in love.</p><p>He leans forward, and presses his lips to Bokuto’s. He pulls back slightly, until their noses are just brushing. “Take me to Kuroo-san,” he says, and Bokuto complies.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The castle is on its last two legs when they arrive. Kenma is huddled with the scarecrow, far away from Oikawa. The witch still holds Bokuto’s heart in their hands, held in a vice grip.</p><p>Bokuto collapses almost immediately when they land on the castle. Like leaves whisked away in a storm, the feathers are stripped away until only Bokuto’s human form remains. Keiji falls to his knees beside him. Kenma peers over his shoulder worriedly. “Is he dead?”</p><p>“He’s fine,” Keiji says with confidence, smoothing down the front of Bokuto’s shirt. He looks too quiet like this.</p><p>Oikawa winces back when Keiji’s eyes land on them. “Don’t look at me,” they say, tossing their head imperiously. “I don’t have anything. Absolutely nothing!”</p><p>It’s hard to be patient with Oikawa when they’ve done so much hurt to Keiji and everyone around him. Hard to not just wrestle them to the ground and rip the damn heart from their hands if it means saving Bokuto. But Bokuto wouldn’t want that, because his heart is big even when it isn’t inside his body where it should be.</p><p>So Keiji tries. He really tries. “Oikawa-san,” he says. “Please.”</p><p>His sincerity must shine through, because Oikawa falters. “You really want it that badly?” they ask, eyes watching Keiji with suspicion.</p><p>Keiji nods. He would do anything for that heart. Even if Oikawa asked him to run and demand Ushijima stop the war right now and return Oikawa their powers, he would.</p><p>(He’d pause and consider it for a second, sure, but he has confidence Ushijima and Bokuto could take Oikawa down again if need be.)</p><p>Oikawa sighs heavily. “Well, alright then,” they say. “But you had better take good care of it.”</p><p>“Believe me,” Keiji says, “I will treasure it like I have never treasured anything else before.”</p><p>Old shrivelled hands hold out the heart, and Keiji takes a moment to look at it as it’s placed into his own palms. It’s round like a stone, enshrined in blue flame that isn’t hot, but instead pleasantly warm. In his palms, it flutters slightly like a baby bird. Weak, struggling, but alive.</p><p><em> This is Bokuto’s heart, </em>Keiji marvels.</p><p>He carries it carefully back over to Bokuto’s prone body. It’s undoubtedly the most precious cargo he’s ever been trusted with. “Kuroo-san,” he calls gently. The flame shifts, and two familiar eyes appear.</p><p>“Akaashi,” Kuroo greets him. “Man, I’m all beat.”</p><p>“I’m going to give Bokuto-san his heart back now,” Keiji tells Kuroo. “Is it going to kill you?”</p><p>If he can help it, he doesn’t want to kill Kuroo. Not when he sees the demon as a friend, as a member of their ragtag family.</p><p>Kuroo hums. “Probably not, if it’s you that’s doing it, Akaashi. We did both survive the water you dumped on me.”</p><p>Keiji winces. “Sorry about that.”</p><p>“Hmph.”</p><p>The heart in his hand moves excitedly, as if it knows it’s going back to its rightful body now. It is still a child’s heart, Keiji realises. It’s young, and excitable about life. <em> It’ll fit right back in with its body, then.  </em></p><p>“To Kuroo-san,” Keiji offers as he prepares to return the heart. “May he live for a thousand years.”</p><p>“You’re too kind.”</p><p>“And to Bokuto-san, may he recover his heart.”</p><p>With the delicacy and precision of someone doing heart surgery, Keiji places the heart down onto Bokuto’s chest, and pushes. It gets swallowed in, and they all wait with bated breath. Even Oikawa looks worried, peering over Tsukki’s back.</p><p>With a burst of blue light and a jubilant laugh, Kuroo bursts out of Bokuto’s chest as a star. “I’m alive!” he crows. “I’m free! Finally!” He whizzes around them once, and then disappears upwards. Keiji watches him until he’s gone, nothing more than a blink of light in the dawn sky.</p><p>“He’s alive!”</p><p>Kenma’s voice and Bokuto’s hacking cough gets Keiji’s attention, but then with a groan the entire platform starts to fall apart around them. </p><p>His hands grab at as many things as he can, securing Bokuto beneath him and Kenma beside him.</p><p>With Kuroo gone, the magic that kept the last of the castle together is gone too, and their wooden platform detaches from the legs. All around them are steep cliffs and perilous drops. It’s all they can do to hold on as they slide down the rocks.</p><p>Keiji does his best not to scream as they fall, gripping onto Bokuto tightly. Kenma and Oikawa scream with no abandon in his ear. </p><p>A rocky outcrop approaches them. <em> Not good </em>, Keiji thinks faintly. Once they go crashing into that, the wooden board will splinter and they’ll all go tumbling down into the abyss below.</p><p>And he’s had quite enough adventures in deep dark abysses and gorges for a lifetime.</p><p>In the end, they don’t tumble down into the abyss, and it’s all thanks to the pumpkin-headed scarecrows sacrifice. It launches itself in front of their makeshift sled, embedding its stick into the rock to slow them down before they reach the outcrop. It works, but at the cost of the stick that makes up its legs.</p><p>Without it, it can no longer stand, and falls to the floor woodenly once their platform comes to a halt.</p><p>“Pumpkin head!” Kenma says, sounding more concerned than Keiji’s ever heard him before. “Hey! What was that?” He picks the scarecrow in his arms and gives it a little shake, but Keiji can see the worry in his eyes. “Are you there?”</p><p>The scarecrow doesn’t move. It’s as motionless as if it were never alive.</p><p>Kenma trembles slightly. “No…”</p><p>“Is he…”</p><p>Kenma shoots Keiji a fierce glare. “Shut up!” He turns back to the scarecrow, eyes softening. “Hey, you saved us, y’know? Thank you for that. I won’t forget it.” It’s like watching a bizarre funeral as Kenma presses a quick kiss onto the pumpkin's forehead.</p><p>It’s almost comically funny the next second when the scarecrow turns into a human, and promptly bursts into tears.</p><p>“Kenma!” the scarecrow - now a young, ginger-haired man in a fine suit - sobs. He throws himself into Kenma’s arms. “Kenma, thank you! You saved my life!”</p><p>Kenma looks petrified. “You…”</p><p>“I’m Hinata Shouyou,” he introduces himself. The name sounds familiar to Keiji. “I’m a prince from the next kingdom. A cruel spell turned me into a scarecrow. But it’s all okay now! Kenma saved me with a true love’s kiss!”</p><p>“A what?” Keiji asks. Kenma turns bright red. He looks like he’s about to combust from embarrassment. </p><p>Hinata turns back to Kenma, a grin as bright as the sun on his handsome face. “You saved me, Kenma!” Kenma lets out a sound like a dying cat.</p><p>“Urgh.”</p><p>The sound of Bokuto stirring brings Keiji’s attention away from Hinata. Bokuto tries to sit up, and then winces. Looking him over for serious injuries, Keiji concludes that he’s not in any grave danger.</p><p>“What’s goin’ on?” Bokuto slurs, eyes blinking furiously. “God, I feel so heavy. Like I’m stuck under a rock or something. ‘Kaashi, what’s happening to me? Am I dying?”</p><p>He looks so worried, eyes wide and lips parted mid-question, and Keiji thinks he’s never looked more beautiful, even with streaks of dirt on his face. <em> Oh, I love you. </em></p><p>“A heart is a rather heavy burden to carry,” Keiji tells him. “Bokuto-san, I-”</p><p>“I love you,” Bokuto bursts out. “I’m sorry I interrupted, I just couldn’t contain it. You look so beautiful right now, Keiji. The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen!”</p><p>“Even more than yourself?”</p><p>“More so! Far more so!”</p><p>This time, there’s no imminent life-threatening danger to stop Keiji from pulling Bokuto in for a kiss. He kisses him, and thinks that these are the same lips that swallowed a star.</p><p>He kisses him, and he doesn’t stop.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Bokuto drapes himself over Keiji’s back, nuzzling into his neck. Keiji’s hand pauses on its way to dip his quill into the inkpot. “Koutarou?” he asks. “Did you want something?”</p><p>A chin comes to rest on his shoulder, and playful lips blow air into his ear. “I was bored. My Keiji isn’t paying attention to me.”</p><p>A fond smile curls its way onto Keiji’s lips, and he sets the quill aside so he can turn and capture Bokuto’s lips with his own. They’re as soft as ever, and taste faintly of sugar and cinnamon. <em> He’s been snacking in the kitchen again.  </em></p><p>“I thought you were practicing spells with Kozume,” he says once he pulls away.</p><p>Bokuto pouts. “Kenma abandoned me to go kiss Hinata, so I got lonely.” His arms sneak around Keiji’s waist, pulling him in tight. “How come Kenma’s boyfriend has time for him, and mine doesn’t?”</p><p>“I’m writing,” Keiji reminds him.</p><p>“You can write later.”</p><p>It’s a trap, and Keiji knows it. ‘Later’ never comes with Bokuto the Great Wizard, who revels in using every spare second of his time to persuade Keiji away from work and into bed to cuddle, or kiss, or something more.</p><p>“I can’t,” Keiji says after a while, sighing. He’d love nothing more than to spend some quality time with Bokuto, especially since the weather outside is so beautiful today, but… “I have to have these chapters done by the end of this week, or my publisher will have my head.”</p><p>“Just tell them that you’ll set Bokuto the Wizard on them if they push you!”</p><p>Keiji laughs. “I can’t keep using you as an excuse, you know. They’ve already delayed my deadline twice.”</p><p>Bokuto peers down at the pages upon pages of writing, words scrawled and crossed out and sloping all over the place. “What’s this one about, hm?”</p><p>Keiji raises an eyebrow at him. “A normal person who falls in love with a wizard, and they go on all sorts of fantastical adventures to magical far-away lands.”</p><p>“Sounds original,” Bokuto says. “Wait.” He picks up one of the sheets randomly, and starts to read it. “I hope you’re not making this wizard as powerful as me.”</p><p>“I’d never,” Keiji says, shifting one page under another stack.</p><p>“Or as handsome!”</p><p>“I could never hope to capture your likeness on page properly.”</p><p>“Or as smart!”</p><p>“Well…”</p><p>“Akaashi!”</p><p>The two of them dissolve into laughter, Bokuto’s booming hoots overlaying Keiji’s quiet chuckles. A hand plucks at the glasses on Keiji’s nose. “I’ll never get over how beautiful you look in these,” Bokuto says sincerely, eyes fixed on Keiji.</p><p>Even now, after so long to get used to Bokuto’s brash and honest compliments, it still makes him blush to hear it said straight to his face. With reluctance, he pushes Bokuto’s hands away from his face. “Go,” he says. “Or I won’t get any more work done today.”</p><p>“But I’m bored, Keiji!” Bokuto whines, slumping over onto the desk and nearly knocking an ink pot over.</p><p>“I think I heard Kuroo-san saying he wanted to renovate one of the upstairs rooms,” Keiji lies, and watches as Bokuto perks up.</p><p>“Ooh, sounds fun! I’ll see you later then!”</p><p>Like a whirlwind, he comes in and then leaves as quickly as he came, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Keiji begins to reorganise the papers on his desk once more, bending down to fetch his quill from where it had rolled onto the floor.</p><p>Outside the window that faces his desk, the ocean stretches endlessly on. Where the sky meets the horizon is only a faint silver line separating two expanses of deep blue. Just below his window, where the garden courtyard sits, the faint sounds of Kenma and Hinata playing around reaches Keiji’s ears, along with the flap of mechanical wings.</p><p>The new and improved Moving Castle 2.0: Flying Edition. </p><p>Kuroo had returned to them after just a few days, spouting excuses about <em> rain clouds on the horizon </em> and <em> such a long journey back home </em>, but they’d all known he was just lonely. He’d been eager to test out his renewed powers, and Bokuto had too, and so the two of them had come together to recreate the castle this time, but better.</p><p>This time, it was a home for their ragtag family.</p><p>Oikawa even had their own room, and spent their days quite happily relaxing and sunbathing on the rooftops. Kenma and Hinata had their own floor (which Keiji was thankful for, given their energy levels), and he and Bokuto…</p><p>Well, needless to say that Keiji’s room didn’t get used much, and Bokuto’s was infinitely tidier and more organised than before.</p><p>It was home.</p><p>They still journeyed all over the country, meandering their way through forests and valleys and mountains, but at a slower pace now. No more running and hiding, no more fighting. Keiji’d had enough action for a lifetime.</p><p>Now it was time to turn those experiences into stories.</p><p>The scent of salt wafts in through the window on a fresh breeze that rustles the pages of his paper.</p><p>Keiji dips his quill in ink, and puts pen to paper.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> fin. </em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>and we are doneeeee! bokuaka lend themselves so well to sophie and howl, and the rest of the characters really just fell into place aha! i hope everyone enjoyed it, and if you did please leave a comment telling me so ;-; kudos and bookmarks are my lifeblood too!</p><p>u can find me yelling on twitter @catboyeijun, and happy holidays and here's to a better 2021 folks!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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